“Yes, He is altogether lovely! This is my Beloved,
and this is my Friend.” Song of Songs 5:16

I. Christ is to be loved

At the ninth verse of this chapter, you have a question put forth by the daughters of Jerusalem, “What is your beloved more than another beloved?” The spouse answers, “He is the chief among ten thousand.” She then recounts many of the things she finds so excellent in her beloved and then concludes with these words: “Yes, he is altogether lovely.” The words set forth the transcendent loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and naturally resolve themselves into three parts:

First, Who he is: the Lord Jesus Christ, after whom she had been seeking, for whom she was overcome by love; concerning whom these daughters of Jerusalem had enquired: whom she had struggled to describe in his particular excellencies. He is the great and excellent subject of whom she here speaks.

Secondly, What he is, or what she claims of him: That he is a lovely one. The Hebrew word, which is often translated “desires,” means “to earnestly desire, covet, or long after that which is most pleasant, graceful, delectable and admirable.” The original word is both in the abstract, and plural in number, which says that Christ is the very essence of all delights and pleasures, the very soul and substance of them. As all the rivers are gathered into the ocean, which is the meeting-place of all the waters in the world, so Christ is that ocean in which all true delights and pleasures meet.

Thirdly, What he is like: He is altogether lovely, the every part to be desired. He is lovely when taken together, and in every part; as if she had said, “Look on him in what respect or particular you wish; cast your eye upon this lovely object, and view him any way, turn him in your serious thoughts which way you wish; consider his person, his offices, his works, or any other thing belonging to him; you will find him altogether lovely, there is nothing disagreeable in him, there is nothing lovely without him.” Hence note,

DOCTRINE: That Jesus Christ is the loveliest person souls can set their eyes upon: “You are the most excellent of men.” Psalm 45:2

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Listen to John Piper telling of hearing God’s voice early one morning …

The Morning I Heard the Voice of God

We can learn a valuable lesson from the disciple’s response when Jesus said to them, “Assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me” (Matt. 26:21). They did not turn and point the finger at the one sitting next to them, but “they were exceedingly sorrowful, and each of them began to say to Him, ‘Lord, is it I?’

When it comes to doubting our salvation, most every Christian will have times of doubt as to whether or not he himself is saved, particularly in his earliest years as a Christian. He does not doubt the promises of God but rather or not he himself has received them. He who has doubts about his salvation will seek diligently after assurance. The false professor, on the other hand, will not experience such struggles for why would he struggle with something he does not truly believe? It is the one who never wrestles with his salvation that is more likely to be found in danger of a false assurance, for the reality of what is at stake never truly reaches the depths of his soul. J.C. Philpot states:

Now I believe that for the most part, those who have nothing else but a birth ‘of blood, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man,’ have no doubts nor fears, no strong exercises nor sharp temptations as to their eternal state before God: whilst, on the other hand, those whom the Lord is teaching by the blessed Spirit, are often tried and exercised in their minds whether the feelings which they from time to time inwardly experience spring from a real work of God upon their souls, or whether they are mere counterfeits and imitations of a work of grace.

Thus, in God’s mysterious providence, those who have every reason to fear have for the most part no fear at all, and those who have no reason whatever to fear, but stand complete in Christ, the objects of God’s eternal love, and the sheep for whom Jesus died, are the only persons who are plagued and pestered with the fears that spring from their own unbelieving hearts, and the temptations with which Satan is continually distressing their minds. It is the object of Satan to keep those secure who are safe in his hands; nor does God see fit to disturb their quiet. He has no purpose of mercy towards them; they are not subjects of His kingdom; they are not objects of His love. He therefore leaves them carnally secure; in a dream, from which they will not awake till God “despises their image” (Ps. 73:20).

But on the other hand, where Satan perceives a work of grace going on; where he sees the eyes sometimes filled with tears, where he hears the sobs heaving from the contrite heart, where he observes the knees often bent in secret prayer, where his listening ear often hears the poor penitent confess his sins, weaknesses, and backslidings before God (for by these observations, we have reason to believe, Satan gains his intelligence), wherever he sees this secret work going on in the soul, mad with wrath and filled with malice, he vents his hellish spleen against the objects of God’s love. Sometimes he tries to ensnare them into sin, sometimes to harass them with temptation, sometimes to stir up their wicked heart into desperate rebellion, sometimes to work upon their natural infidelity, and sometimes to plague them with many groundless doubts and fears as to their reality and sincerity before a heart-searching God.

So that whilst those who have no work of grace upon their hearts at all are left secure, and free from doubt and fear, those in whom God is at work are exercised and troubled in their minds, and often cannot really believe that they are the people in whom God takes delight.(1)

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[The following is taken from a friends blog - link is at the bottom]

“There are plenty to follow our Lord half-way but not the other half. They will give up possessions, friends and honors but it touches them too closely to disown themselves.”~~Meister Eckhart

Are you following God’s faintest whisper? Can He trust you to obey no matter how much He asks of you? Does He know that here is one, who, though others may falter and fall, will stand secure?

A person like that only comes along once in a while. Having looked at the world and all it has to offer, he turns away, not in resignation but in disgust. He doesn’t want it–not any of it. His lot has been completely cast in with God.

He walks, stumbling and falling sometimes as we all do but, instead of staying fallen, he gets back up and seeks the Lord’s help, and continues on his journey towards holiness and Home.

This world isn’t home to this person. She doesn’t want it. She doesn’t care about it one whit. Be it reputation or family or land, nothing is more important to this one than his or her Lord.

Others laugh at him for being so very old-fashioned. Snickering behind his back–and, to his face–others treat this one as if he has some sort of mental deficiency for choosing God as his “one thing” and sticking to it.

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“We cannot have one spark of real humility till we are abased before God, as guilty, helpless, and undone creatures, who have no hope but in the tender mercy of God in Christ Jesus. We must, as far as respects all hope in ourselves, feel ourselves in the very condition of the fallen angels, whose sin we have followed, and whose punishment we are doomed to share. Indeed, this is our very state, whether we know it or not: and it becomes us to seek the knowledge of it, and to live under a sense of it every day, and all the day long. We should never appear either before God or man in any other dress than this. It was the clothing of holy Job when in his most perfect state(Job 42:5, 6): and so far ought we to be from putting it off because God is reconciled towards us, that a sense of our acceptance with him through Christ should operate as an additional motive for making it the one continual habit of our minds(Eze 16:63). Incessantly should we lie low before him in dust and ashes, and rely altogether upon ‘his mercy to pardon us, and his grace to help us in every time of need.’ ”
—Charles Simeon