[0:00] I'd like to turn with me, we're going to read now from our Bibles, and we're going to read from a book I'm sure not many of us turn to, it's Song of Songs, or Song of Solomon, and if you've got the Red Church Bible, one of the new Bibles, that's page 683, okay, if you've got one of these, 683, Song of Songs, and chapter 5, and we're going to read from verse 2 of chapter 5 into chapter 6, just while you're turning there, the reason we're looking here this morning is we're taking a break from Exodus, and of course we're going into Easter, and this week past has been the second anniversary of ourselves, Andrew, myself, and the children coming here to Whitby, and me taking up the pastor's ministry.
[0:55] So I just wanted to preach something from my heart, and I wanted to mark the occasion really just by giving thanks to God for his faithfulness to us as a family and to us as a fellowship, that you've survived two years.
[1:08] It's a miracle of grace, I can assure you that you have, but we thank God for that, we rejoice in his faithfulness. So hopefully you've found Song of Songs, page 683, and chapter 5 beginning at verse 2.
[1:26] This portion of the Old Testament is part of the Psalms, part of the poetry, which includes Ecclesiastes, the Psalms, Proverbs, and so on. It tells the romance, really, between King Solomon and his bride.
[1:43] It's a great love story, but as we'll see as we go through later on, it has much to tell us of the Lord Jesus Christ too.
[1:55] So verse 2 of chapter 5. This is the woman, the bride-to-be speaking. I slept, but my heart was awake. Listen, my beloved is knocking.
[2:08] Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night. I've taken off my robe, must I put it on again?
[2:21] I've washed my feet, must I soil them again? My beloved thrust his hand through the latch opening. My heart began to pound for him. I rose to open for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh on the handles of the bolts.
[2:40] I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had left. He was gone. My heart sank at his departure. I looked for him, but did not find him.
[2:51] I called him, but he did not answer. The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. They beat me. They bruised me. They took away my cloak. Those watchmen on the walls.
[3:03] Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you. If you find my beloved, what will you tell him? Tell him I am faint with love. How is your beloved better than others, most beautiful of women?
[3:17] How is your beloved better than others that you so charge us? My beloved is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand. His head is pure as gold.
[3:29] His hair is wavy and black as a raven. His eyes are like doves by the water streams, washed in milk, mounted like jewels. His cheeks are like beds of spice yielding perfume.
[3:42] His lips are like lilies dripping with myrrh. His arms are rods of gold set with topaz. His body is like polished ivory decorated with lapis luzili.
[3:53] That means sapphires. His legs are pillars of marble set on bases of pure gold. His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars.
[4:04] His mouth is sweetness itself. He is altogether lovely. This is my beloved. This is my friend, daughters of Jerusalem. Where has your beloved gone, most beautiful of women?
[4:18] Which way did your beloved turn that we may look for you with him? My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices, to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies.
[4:29] I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He browses among the lilies. Well, please turn back to page 683, if you've got the church Bible there, page 683 to Song of Songs, Song of Solomon, and chapter 5 from verse 2 into the beginning of chapter 6.
[4:52] I'm sure you're all well acquainted with the saying, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In other words, something is only as beautiful as the person who's looking upon it counts it as beautiful.
[5:05] So, if you were to take a stroll through an art gallery, two people may be looking at a picture, a painting upon the wall. To one person, it's an exquisite expression of beautiful art.
[5:20] Something which captivates them and they delight in and thrill by it. To another person, a philistine like me, they look upon it and it just looks like a whole mess of colours some child has done at the age of 12.
[5:32] But, two different views. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Naturally, of course, we see our spouse in a way that nobody else sees them in the world.
[5:45] We see them as beautiful, lovely, delightful, more than anyone else considers them or sees them. We see them in a way uniquely to us. And, of course, the same goes for our children.
[5:56] Our children are far more beautiful than anybody else's children when they were babies and they were born. And our grandchildren, perhaps, as well. We see beauty. It's in the eye of the beholder.
[6:07] There's that difference between two views. Now, nowhere in the world is that differing view of beauty more striking than in the way people view the Lord Jesus Christ.
[6:20] The Apostle Paul, as he writes to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5, talks about how there are two views of Jesus. Two alternate, opposite views of him.
[6:31] He says this, From now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.
[6:42] Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation. The old has gone. The new has come. There's that one point of view which is, as he puts it, the worldly point of view. The way that the majority of the world, in fact, the way that everybody sees Jesus at one time in their life.
[6:58] This scene is pretty much ordinary. They seem as a man. They may seem as a good man, a religious leader, a great man, a great teacher, a humanitarian, all sorts of things.
[7:09] But they seem simply as a man. And nothing more than that. That's the way many people see Jesus. Perhaps it's the way you see him as well, as Paul puts it from that worldly point of view.
[7:23] The problem is, and the reason why we are told that people see Jesus in that way is because they have been blinded. Blinded by unbelief. Blinded by sin.
[7:34] And so they see him as Isaiah prophesied men and women would see Jesus in a prophecy in chapter 53 of his book. Speaking of Christ to come.
[7:44] So even those who say great things about Jesus as a man, as a historical figure, still see nothing in him to attract them to him.
[8:05] Nothing in him that they should want him and desire him. And put their faith in him. There's something quite plain in his appearance. But, says Paul, that was the way that we all saw Jesus at one time.
[8:19] But for the believer, we see him as a very different way. We see him in that way no longer. Paul says the old has gone, the new has come. The believer sees Jesus in a totally new way.
[8:32] They see him with new eyes. New understanding. If you remember, there was that occasion in the life of Jesus where he takes three of his closest disciples, Peter, James and John, up into a mountain.
[8:46] And there we're told he was transfigured before their eyes. He was transformed so that he shone more brightly than the sun in all its strength. That's what's happened to the Christian.
[8:56] That's what's happened to the believer. Jesus has been transformed, changed in our eyes. Not that he's changed, but we've been changed. Our eyes have been changed. Like Paul of old, when he was Saul on the road, we had scales on our eyes which fell off.
[9:12] And so we beheld and saw Jesus now in a way which reflects the way that this young woman looks upon her beloved, her king, her prince.
[9:24] Here in chapter 5 and verse 10, she said, My beloved is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among 10,000. And particularly verse 16, he is altogether lovely.
[9:37] He is altogether lovely. This book of Song of Songs, as I've said, is a poetry. It's a story. But it speaks of Jesus.
[9:49] It speaks of Jesus because we know the whole of the Bible is about him. Jesus says that himself in chapter 5 of the Gospel of John. Speaking to the religious leaders, people who studied and read the Bible, very religious people, but they'd missed the whole point.
[10:05] He says, you diligently, diligently study the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me.
[10:16] So everywhere we look, when Jesus was on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, he's talking with two of the disciples. They're very sad. But he begins to tell them from the whole of the Bible, from the law of Moses, from the prophets and from the Psalms, the things about himself that the Christ had to suffer, had to die and rise again.
[10:40] So the Christian sees Jesus. I wonder how do you see him this morning? What's your view of Jesus this morning? When you think about him, when you hear about him, what is it that you see?
[10:52] What is it that you consider? Do you see him from a worldly point of view? Just an ordinary man. Special man, maybe, but a man nonetheless. Or do you see him as he truly is? Do you see him as altogether lovely?
[11:05] Do you see him as outstanding? Do you see him as someone who is indeed beautiful? There's two things that are here, I believe, in verses 10 to 16 that speak of the loveliness of Christ.
[11:20] The first of these is the loveliness of his very person. The loveliness of his appearance, his nature. Notice he is altogether lovely. And we have, through these verses, this description by the young woman as she thinks about her beloved.
[11:36] As she describes him. She describes him in the most wonderful way. As the most handsome. As the most virile. As the most strong. As the most lovely looking. When the Christian looks on Jesus, we think of him and see him as he truly is.
[11:51] We see him as God made manifest. We see him as God, the divine one. Not simply a man, but the God who became man and lived amongst us. The God who revealed by his very actions, by his very life, the qualities of divinity.
[12:05] Of holiness, of majesty. Of omnipotence and power. John just mentioned there that incredible miracle of the man lowered into the room where Jesus says, Your sins are forgiven. Only God can do that.
[12:17] And to prove that he was God, he then raises the man up to walk for the first time in his life. There's something wonderfully lovely about the person of Jesus. When we think upon him.
[12:27] When we look upon him. He is altogether lovely. In Revelation chapter 1. There is an appearance of the Lord Jesus comes to John the Apostle.
[12:40] He sees him in his resurrection. His ascended glory. He sees him as he is. And this is how he describes what he sees. A son of man dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet.
[12:51] With a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool. As white as snow. His eyes like blazing fire. His feet like bronze glowing in a furnace.
[13:02] The voice like the sound of rushing waters. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. That's how we know that what we have here is a picture of Jesus.
[13:13] Because we see that there's those similarities meeting together. Christ is a lovely person. We say that about other people. We say oh aren't they a lovely person.
[13:26] Christ is lovely in his person and his very nature. But he's lovely in who he is. Just read the gospels. Don't you find there a man of compassion. A man of patience. A man who is kind and gentle with those who are harshly treated.
[13:40] One of the titles given to him by his enemies was a friend of sinners. Someone who sympathizes with all our weaknesses. Somebody who knows what it is to go through all our trials.
[13:54] One who struggled in this world and in life as we do. In every way the very person of Jesus is lovely. But we think as well as she describes her beloved here.
[14:08] She describes yes his head and his eyes and his face. And the beauty of his appearance. But she then talks about his strength. The arms. Rods of gold. Body like polished ivory with sapphires.
[14:20] Legs like pillars of marble. There's strength in this person. He's not an eight stone weakling. He's someone of power and of strength. To accomplish and do great things. And for the Christian the loveliness of Jesus.
[14:32] Is not just in the person. But in the wonderful things that he's done for us. The work of Jesus is so lovely. And what a work he's done. By his arms and his legs.
[14:44] We think of those arms and legs. And we think of course of those that were crucified upon the cross. Arms nailed up for us. Feet pierced through.
[14:55] A side yes of beautiful strength. But a side in which a spear was driven. To finish him off. The work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[15:06] In our salvation. In rescuing us from our sin. Is the most lovely thing that he could ever do for us. The greatest display of love. That the world has ever seen. Is that the son of God became a man.
[15:16] And died upon a cross. Greatest evidence. The sacrificing of himself. In our service. The giving of his strength.
[15:28] To the bearing of your sin and mine. The rescuing of us. From the crushing weight of our sin. And God's judgment against that sin. Doesn't that make us want to cry out.
[15:38] Hallelujah. What a saviour. As we sing that hymn sometimes. Doesn't the very thought. When we look upon the cross. And think about his lovely work for us there.
[15:50] Make us want to say. Oh he's altogether lovely. Altogether lovely. And that phrase altogether lovely. Is what I want us to think about a bit more.
[16:01] Because altogether carries with it. Certain connotations doesn't it. We can say that someone is lovely. But nobody is altogether lovely. No matter the loveliest person in the world.
[16:12] That they're not altogether lovely. But Jesus is altogether lovely. Because we see here. He's incomparably lovely. In other words. There's no one who comes close to him in loveliness.
[16:23] There's no one who can hold a candle to him in loveliness. In verse 9 here. The friends of the woman question her. What's so great about your beloved?
[16:34] What's so special about him? Why do you keep going on about him? Why do you want us to search for him? What does she say? My beloved is radiant and ruddy. Outstanding among 10,000.
[16:46] In other words. There's no one who comes close to him. You take 10,000 people. He's head and shoulders above them. In our language we'd say he's one in a million. One in a million.
[16:57] In fact we'd go more than that of course with the Lord Jesus Christ. He's comparably lovely. Not just a million. Not just 7 billion. But every single living person who's ever walked the face of the earth. Is far short of the loveliness of the Lord Jesus.
[17:11] In Colossians chapter 1. As Paul talks about Jesus. As being the fullness of the Godhead revealed. He says so that in everything he might have the preeminence.
[17:23] The first place. The supremacy. He's top dog. He's uniquely lovely. There never has been a person as lovely as the Lord Jesus.
[17:35] Whoever lived before him. Or lived since him. Or ever will live in this world. He puts everyone else into the shade. That's why when John saw the Lord Jesus Christ.
[17:50] He said his face outshines the sun in all its brilliance. He puts the sun in the shade. He is incomparably lovely. We who are believers.
[18:02] We who know this loveliness. Cannot help but say yes I love him more than anything else in the world. More than anyone else in the world. That's why when she thinks of him coming and being near her.
[18:14] We're told her heart pounded. She was excited. She was thrilled. We love him of course because he first loved us.
[18:25] That's what John tells us. He loved us. He loved us and did for us what no one else could ever do for us. Why does a Christian keep going on about Jesus all the time?
[18:36] Why do we keep banging on about this Jesus? Well because there's no one like him. There's no one compares to him. There's no one who's done for us what he can do. There is no one who could save us. When Peter and John were called to account for preaching about Jesus.
[18:50] They were told off. But they said this. Salvation is found in no one else. For there's no other name under heaven. Given to mankind by which we must be saved. Christians are not arrogant.
[19:06] Christians are not intolerant. But Christians can't help but say. Look there's no one who is anything like this Jesus. Jesus. Whatever prophet. Whatever religious leader.
[19:16] Whatever type of human being has lived and taught and existed. They can't do what Jesus has done for us. They can't save us from our sins. They can't make us right with God. They can't.
[19:27] They haven't died for us and risen again. There's no name. No person. In the world. Not ourselves. Not anyone.
[19:38] He's incomparably lovely. Hold Jesus up to any comparison. Hold him up against the greatest leaders in the world. Hold him up against people like Buddha.
[19:49] Or Mohammed. Or anybody else. And you will find that every one of them. Is nothing like Jesus. And the reason why he is incomparably lovely to us.
[20:03] Is because the Bible teaches and shows us that he is incorruptibly lovely. In other words there's nothing in him to fault. There's no failure in the Lord Jesus. He's altogether lovely.
[20:14] Totally lovely. Perfectly lovely. Without failing. I wonder if you can cast your mind back ladies. To the time when you had your first date.
[20:25] With the man who eventually you went on to marry. What was he like on that occasion. That first date that he took you out perhaps for a meal. Wasn't he charm itself? Wasn't he the one who opened the door for you and let you through first?
[20:39] Wasn't he the one who took the chair and held it back for you and tucked you in onto the table? Wasn't he the one who said what would you like darling? What would you? Wasn't he charm?
[20:49] How long did that last exactly? Did it last a week? Did it last up until the wedding? Did it last for a few months? Maybe at the best.
[21:00] But very soon the cracks began to show didn't they? Very soon those bad habits. Which somehow he'd managed not to have. While he was charming itself. Suddenly appear.
[21:10] Suddenly he's a bit grumpy in the morning. Which he wasn't before. Or he's forgetful of certain dates and anniversaries. Which he used to remember.
[21:22] Of course it's only then when the warts and all appear that you know whether you love him or not. But he's never altogether lovely is he? But with Jesus there's no cracks to appear.
[21:33] With Jesus there's no change in his loveliness. There's nothing to spoil him. He doesn't deteriorate by study. By knowing. Getting to know him. We don't find out failings.
[21:44] We find out more and more imperfections. More and more loveliness. More and more wonder. More and more beauty. We just see more and more of him. And the reason of course that he is such is because he has no sin.
[21:55] What spoils every single man and every single woman is that they are sinners. We are sinners. You are a sinner. Sin corrupts.
[22:06] Sin destroys. Sin robs us of the beauty of the image of God in which we were created. Sin is that which ruins our relationships with one another. It's what tears marriages apart.
[22:17] It's what breaks friendships. But Jesus has no sin. He's holy. Perfectly. Completely. Wonderfully. Holy. From the top of his head to the bottom of his feet.
[22:28] That's why she talks. Doesn't he? From top to toe he's purest gold. His head is purest gold. Verse 11. What are we told? His legs are pillars of marble set on bases of pure gold. His toes are gold.
[22:42] From top to toe there's everything about him which is lovely. No imperfection. And she goes through and talks about him. Doesn't she? Talks about his hair. He's got wavy hair.
[22:53] Some of us have got wavy hair. Haven't we men? It's waved goodbye to our heads. There's no receding hairline. There's no grey hairs.
[23:04] He doesn't need Grecian 2000 to keep his hair nice and black. He has perfectly black hair. And notice when we look at his face he's got no, how charmingly put it, laughter lines.
[23:16] No wrinkles. No blemishes. His eyes aren't bloodshot with bags underneath them. And then his body, his torso. There's no middle age spread.
[23:28] There's no bingo wings on his arms. There's no sagging tummy over his belt. There's beauty and loveliness altogether. There's no other. Isn't it the case, dear Christian friend, that the more that you've got to know Jesus, the more lovely he appears.
[23:43] The more you get to know him, the more beautiful he is. The more attractive he is. The more desirable he is. The deeper we delve into his loveliness, the more of his beauty we discover.
[23:57] Now, of course, we know that perfectionism in some people can be a fault, can't it? Perfectionism in some people can be a jolly irritation. But Jesus is not that way.
[24:11] The more perfectly we view him, the more we adore him. The more perfectly we see him, the more we love him. And again, that includes not only the beauty of his character, his nature, but again of the work of our Lord Jesus.
[24:24] It's an incorruptible work that he's done for us in salvation. A perfect salvation. A salvation that takes all of our sins, every single one of them, and cleanses us of them, and forgives us of them, and pardons us of them.
[24:40] There's not one sin, dear friend, that you and I have committed or will commit that Christ has not perfectly dealt with in his death upon the cross. All the judgment that you deserve, he is removed by that stroke of punishment against him.
[24:54] And every single person who puts their faith and trust in him, he will save to the uttermost, completely, eternally. When we gather in heaven before him and see him in his glory, when everyone for whom he's died is there, everyone that he's chosen is there, no one will be missing.
[25:13] No one will be left behind. The very weakest saint, with the smallest amount of faith, will be there in his father's house, just as he promised.
[25:24] Though you are corruptible, dear friends, though we are failing, though we are sinful, though we fall far, fall far from the way we should be, he never can do.
[25:36] Because he is an incorruptible savior, an incorruptible in his love towards us, in saving us. And all that loveliness of Jesus, all that loveliness makes us want him all the more.
[25:54] We see here in this young woman that there she has an insatiable desire for the loveliness of her beloved. The loveliness of Jesus makes him insatiably lovely to us.
[26:05] Verse 6, what happens when she opens the door and he's gone? She goes looking for him. My heart sank at his departure. I've got to find him. You can tell there's this sense of urgency about her.
[26:16] I looked for him. I called for him. I went out into the streets. She suffered the anger and the misunderstanding of the watchmen who were the guards around the city, thinking perhaps she was up to no good.
[26:27] They beat her and bruised her and took away her cloak. She calls all of her friends and says, please help me search for him. Tell him that I'm faint with love.
[26:38] I'm lovesick. I've got to have him. I'm insatiable for more of him and more of his loveliness. So it is with every Christian, every believer, there is that hunger for Jesus, for more of him.
[26:58] The more we have, the more we want. The more we know, the more we experience, the more we desire. Think of David, the psalmist, as he writes that psalm. We sing it sometimes.
[27:08] Psalm 42. As the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants, thirst, longs after you. Is that true of you?
[27:25] It's the acid test, I would say, of whether you are a Christian or not. The acid test, whether you truly have experienced the saving work and love and grace of God in your life.
[27:37] The acid test is not whether you can tick boxes and say, yes, I believe this, this, this, and this. It's not whether you can keep curtain rules and do certain things, whether you're a member of the church, whether you've been baptized, or whether you pray.
[27:50] None of those things, in one sense, important though they are, are the acid test, the proof. And the pudding is this, do you love Jesus and do you want more of Jesus? Is he lovely to you?
[28:02] Is he a delight to you? Is your daily desire, I want more of him? I thirst for him. The reason I pray is because I just want to know him more.
[28:12] The reason I read the Bible is because I want to find out more about him. The reason I gather with his people is because in them I see something of him too. Insatiable.
[28:25] It's not insatiable in the sense that it's a bad thing, it's insatiable in a good thing. It's a healthy appetite. It's a sign that we are spiritually alive, that we want to feed and eat and drink and gaze on Jesus.
[28:43] Going back to that illustration at the beginning of two people in the art gallery gazing upon a masterpiece. And you may be an art lover and an art critic, but you can gaze upon a picture, you can gaze upon a beautiful scene.
[28:58] Whitby is a beautiful place. You can gaze upon it from the abbey and look down to the harbour and so on. But in a while it becomes ordinary. It becomes every day.
[29:09] You take it for granted. People who know that we live in Whitby will come and say, oh, Whitby is such a lovely, wonderful place. It's so marvellous. I love it. You must be so thrilled to be there all the time. And say, yeah, it's okay.
[29:21] But, you know, we aren't thrilled as they are. Even a most wonderful masterpiece, even a great landscape becomes ordinary after a while.
[29:31] But for the believer, Jesus never becomes ordinary. We never stop wanting him. We never stop longing to see his face. We never stop desiring to know more of him.
[29:42] We never stop looking for that day when we shall be in heaven and gaze upon him face to face and see him as we truly should see him. With sin removed out of the way.
[29:52] With no hindrance or burden. What is heaven to the Christian? What is heaven to the believer? It's being with Jesus. That's why the Apostle Paul would say, for me to live is Christ, to die is gain.
[30:07] I long to be with him which is better by far. Whatever the world has to offer us, whatever riches there are, whatever pleasures there are, whatever it is that you're living for, dear friends, let me assure you of this, that they are nothing in comparison with having Christ.
[30:21] He's better by far. And by his grace and by his loveliness we shall see him and we shall be with him and we shall gaze upon him and enjoy his presence for all eternity.
[30:33] And all eternity we shall not get to the end of his loveliness. All eternity we shall not stop ceasing to delight in him and rejoice in him and find him our greatest pleasure.
[30:44] Heaven is not sat on a cloud with a pair of wings and a harp strumming away. Heaven is being in the presence of the one that loved us with an everlasting love and the one that we love with a love which burns deep within our hearts.
[31:02] Do you have that insatiable love, dear friends, for Jesus? Finally, as we close, Jesus is altogether lovely to us because he has brought us into a union with him, which is an indestructible love.
[31:21] The loveliness of Jesus is an indestructible loveliness. Because we are his and he is ours. That's why we read into chapter 6 because she says in verse 3, I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine.
[31:33] There's a union, there's a oneness. She considers herself to be the very possession of her beloved and him to be hers. It's wonderful when we hear of marriages that have celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.
[31:51] Or their diamond wedding anniversary. But even the most loving marriage, even the most wonderful couple, ultimately must be separated by death. But not this loving union between Jesus and the believer.
[32:08] We are his and he is ours forever and ever. Throughout this life and throughout eternity. That's why Paul, as he writes about the incredible love of Christ, he speaks about the dangers of life and the uncertainty of life.
[32:22] Yet he speaks about the certainty of this. I'm convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
[32:42] It's God's love in Christ. That's where we know he's God. The love that he has for us, the love that we've entered into, the love that we've been united with is a love which can never be separated and pulled apart.
[32:54] And it's his loveliness that does that. Never doubt, dear friend, never doubt, dear Christian believer, that Christ has stopped loving you.
[33:06] He cannot. It's impossible. It goes against everything that he is. It goes against his whole nature. It goes against everything he's done to remove his love from you. Nothing can stop you, dear friend, from enjoying that loveliness every moment of the day of your life here and throughout eternity.
[33:24] indestructibly lovely. So let me ask you again, when did you last gaze on the loveliness of Jesus?
[33:37] When did he last appear that lovely to you? When were you last raptured with his love? When were you last lost in wonder, love, and praise before his beauty?
[33:51] Isn't it essential, dear Christian, that we spend time doing just that? Isn't it vital that we stop in the busyness of life, in the busyness of all that we do?
[34:03] Isn't it important that we stop and look at him and delight in him? Isn't it important that we spend time gazing upon him? You see, wouldn't such a sight of Jesus warm our cold hearts?
[34:14] Wouldn't such a sense of his loveliness and the capturing of his loveliness warm those hearts which are often so cold and so selfish and so self-absorbed? Wouldn't such a view of Jesus make us appreciate the fact that the things that we have in this world are passing and transitory, that they're only for a while, but he is forever and for all time?
[34:34] Wouldn't such a love for Jesus, such a sight of him, make us pursue him instead of pursuing the things the world offers which are fake and false and empty?
[34:50] What can I say to you, dear friends, here this morning who have never seen Jesus in his loveliness? What can I say to you who've never had that vision of someone who is so utterly altogether lovely?
[35:04] It's not something that you have to live without. You don't have to stay blind. You don't have to stay with scales on your eyes. You don't have to continue in your life with your eyes blinded to the beauty and the loveliness of Jesus.
[35:19] You don't have to continue going through this world, finding everything that you have, but just passing pleasure, never satisfying. Can you ask that God would give you a sight of Jesus?
[35:36] Can you ask? Can you pray earnestly and honestly in your heart to God? Please open my eyes. There were some Greek men who were at the feast in John chapter 12.
[35:48] They came to Philip, one of the disciples, and they said to him, we want to see Jesus. Can you pray that simple prayer before God? Lord, I want to see Jesus.
[35:59] I want my eyes open. If this is true, if this is who he really is, if he's that beautiful and lovely, I don't want to miss out on him. Please let me see him. See him as lovely.
[36:10] Let me see him as the one who's died for me and is my savior. Let me see him. Will you pray that prayer? Or are you afraid to pray that prayer that God may answer it?
[36:23] And all this time, you'll see that you've been blind. All this time, you'll see that you've been lost. Dear friends, isn't it better to know that now than when it's too late? Isn't it better to see Jesus and have your eyes open to see him as lovely and wonderful now because the truth is that when you do see him again, it will be coming in judgment and you will see him as the judge before whom you stand fearful and terrifying as your life is laid bare and all that you've done and all that you are is revealed.
[36:55] Those jealousies, that envy, that cruelty, that bitter words, that heart resentment, that unforgiveness, those terrible things are there hidden in.
[37:08] You'll see him then as the judge and there won't be loveliness that you'll experience but justice. Let me urge you, let me urge you, dear friends, ask God to show you Jesus.
[37:26] You'll never be disappointed. He'll never fail. He'll exceed your expectations. Dear friends, dear Christian believers, let us be those who fix our eyes on Jesus and follow him.
[37:48] Let us throw off everything that entangles and the sin that so easily hinders. Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of our faith.
[38:09] For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
[38:20] Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.