The Valley No.9 Fragrance in the Valley

Perhaps not the easiest book to find in the Bible, but if you come across Isaiah you'll find that the song of Solomon is just in front of it. The second chapter then of Solomon's song. I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.

As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love. Stay me with flagons. Comfort me with apples for I am sick of love.

His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me. I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the rose and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake my love till he please. The voice of my beloved, behold, he cometh leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

My beloved is like a roe or a young heart. Behold, he standeth behind our wall. He looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice.

My beloved spake and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For though the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth.

The time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

O my dove that art in the clefts of the rock, in the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance. Let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes.

My beloved is mine and I am his. He feedeth among the lilies until the daybreak. The shadows flee away.

Turn, my beloved, and be thou like a roe or a young heart upon the mountains of Bethlehem. Amen. Open at the song of Solomon, and we shall be looking particularly at the first and second verses of chapter 2. Those who regularly meet here at the Tabernacle will well recall that for nigh on three months we have been looking at a series of studies from the Word of God which I have entitled The God of the Valleys.

And you may recall that my own thinking was triggered off along this line when dealing with a conversation recorded in one of the historical books of the Bible amongst the Syrian soldiers. They had suffered a defeat at the hand of the Hebrew forces, and they wrongly deduced that the reason for the victory was because they had been fighting the Hebrews on the hilltops. Instead, they concluded they should have fought them in the valley, for they said that the God of the Hebrews is a God of the mountains and not a God of the valleys.

And I have taken that as being a seed thought that has certainly opened up a new vista of thinking for myself and study, as together we have gone through certain passages of Scripture that seem to indicate that God is indeed the God of the valleys as well as the God of the mountaintops. And I have gone so far as to suggest to you, and I trust I have been able to demonstrate it from the Word of God, that the life of the believer is to be seen more in terms of the passing through a valley than regular hops from one pinnacle to another pinnacle. So again, we come back to the thought of the God of the valleys, and we consider ourselves as Christians pushing our way down a valley.

The scenery sometimes varies. Occasionally we are going through gorges, and the hills are very close in on us. They hem us around, and at other times the hills are further back, and we're on a plain, and the grasses are green, and the river just slowly meanders its way across.

But nonetheless, throughout our lives, we do come across, as Christian people, difficulties. The worries may be pushed aside for a while, but sure enough they're brought back sooner or later. And this sort of approach may be one that frustrates you as we look into the Word of God, yet I cannot apologize for it, because I believe that this is the realism that you discover within the ministry of Jesus Christ.

In fact, I find a contrast between the way that the Lord Jesus taught His disciples, and all who would listen to Him, and the popular propagation of the gospel today in many quarters, which seems to suggest that Christianity brings with it an insurance policy against life's ills and difficulties. We're completely immune from them, but that is not what the Savior taught. Indeed, He said to the disciples, in the world you shall have tribulation.

He said that they were taking into a world of darkness a message of light, and the dark forces would not easily accommodate themselves to the illumination of the gospel. And you remember on another occasion the Savior employed a different metaphor, and yet a very striking and forceful one, for He said to the disciples, I'm sending you out into the world as sheep amongst wolves. And one has a picture of savagery, one has a picture of persecution, and this is what developed in the experience of the early church.

So it's because of these things that I have felt it right before God to bring this series to your attention and to preach to you on the God of the valleys. This world knows many difficulties. There are many frustrations in it for Christian people, and sometimes perhaps we're tempted, as was Keats, to wish that we could be removed from it.

You remember how Keats one day addresses a nightingale, and for that poet the bird seems to suggest immortality, and Keats says, away, away, for I would fly with thee. I would be removed from this scene of time with all its problems, with all its anxiety. Yes, there is a lot of unloveliness in this world.

There's a lot of difficulty. There are what we call the natural disasters of earthquake and famine and flood, but I'm particularly concerned with the problems that crop up in ordinary people's lives, the frustrations when families have a division, the burdens that sometimes pile on top of the businessman, and the tensions that our young people find themselves in. This is the sort of life that you and I have to live, a life in the valleys, and yet I have tried not to be purely negative in approaching this series of addresses, for the Bible is not just a negative book, it is a realistic book.

It brims with a realism, and although there are the negatives in the valley, although there are the difficulties, there are also the positives, and we have gloried in them. I have shown you something of the blessings that there are in the valley, the rest that there is in the valley for the child of God, and the way to overcome problems in the valley. And so, this morning, I direct you to another facet of our studying along this line, and I want to talk to you, notwithstanding all that I have said thus far about the fragrance, or if you like, the beauty that is to be found in the valley of life.

And with this in mind, I direct you to these two verses in the Song of Solomon and the second chapter, where the writer, speaking for the Savior, says, I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys, as the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. Here is wonderful symbolism, here is rich teaching. Jesus Christ is likened to the gracious, noble lily, and it is to that flower that the writer of this song likens the fragrant ministry and the life of Jesus Christ.

So, let me suggest to you that our first observation from these two verses could well be this, the location of the lily, the location of the lily. Listen again, I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. The lily apparently prefers the low-lying tract of land for it to blossom, for it to bloom.

And you will find that the Lord Jesus Christ, when he is making reference to the lily, he suggests to the disciples that they are to consider this gracious flower indeed. He said, consider the lily of the valley, and this is what we're going to do. And we're going to liken the lily because Scripture tells us that we can do so to our Lord Jesus Christ.

And surely this is the first and perhaps staggering observation that we have to make, that as the lily finds itself down in the valley, perhaps a little clump of flowers at the foot of the mound of some rocks. So, Jesus Christ was born into the valley of this world. He was born in Bethlehem's manger.

The Father Almighty ordained for the Son to be born in this valley of life. And as the lily transforms the bleakness and the barrenness of a valley, so surely Jesus Christ has transformed in his ministry the bleakness and the barrenness of this world. And how gracious was our Father, how perceptive was he when he planted, so to speak, his own Son, so that he could turn a world of ugliness into one of beauty.

It's down in the valley, my friend, that you'll find the Lord Jesus Christ. It's there that he is ready to minister to you. It's there that he will transform your situation and bring you hope when you're feeling like despairing and create beauty in an experience that is ugly.

But notice also from my text that the verse says this, I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys. In other words, the location is a plural. And this is very suggestive, is it not? Because you see, your journey through life may be different from mine.

We follow different routes, but we're all coming to the same point. We all eventually shall be brought into the heavenly dimension. We eventually shall be received into our Father's house.

But the Word of God says this, that no matter what valley you're passing down, you can find the lily within it. No matter what your experience is, Jesus Christ is not divorced from you. He is the lily, not just of the valley, but of the valleys.

And that is an embracive, inclusive term, so that my text applies to you and your situation, even though that may be divorced and different from my own. So take comfort from our immediate study of this verse, as we realize that it is the Lord Jesus Christ who is the lily, who flowers in our experience, who transforms our circumstances. But let me advance in my study and suggest something else to you, that as we consider the lily of the valley, so we must examine its beauty.

We must examine its delicacy. There is little with which one can compare a lily. There is hardly anything that one could place alongside a lily and suggest that it has an equal beauty.

You remember that Solomon was one of the richest men in the world. His wardrobes were absolutely packed to capacity with clothing. Solomon was dressed in a sartorial splendor that was equaled by none.

Yet Jesus Christ said of Solomon that he in all his glory was not arrayed like one of the lilies of the valley. And who, sustaining the teaching of my text, can you compare with Jesus Christ, God's lily of the valleys of this world? Surely not Solomon, for when you place Solomon alongside Jesus Christ, there is only one deduction that you can make. A greater than Solomon is here.

When you contrast the regalia and the finery of Solomon with the purity and the beauty of Jesus Christ, then the King seems to be dressed in pauper's garments. He has no loveliness to contrast with that of the Savior. It is only of Jesus that the Scriptures can say he is the altogether lovely one.

He is the lily of the valley. Examine him then with me this morning. See his beauty, see his purity, see the texture, if you like, of his petals, and admire and feast your eyes upon the loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sometimes when driving in Cape Province in South Africa, one has seen many of the Aran lilies in the low-lying areas of that part of the world. And it always occurred to me, as dusk came down, that these Aran lilies had a luminous aspect to their coloring. You could see the whiteness of the petal, even though it was drawing towards twilight.

And as far as God's lily, the Lord Jesus Christ, is concerned, there is a luminous about him too. There is something luminous about his nature, something that stands out about his beauty, something that was observed by the disciples as well as by the crude and rough Roman soldiers. Do you remember how on one occasion the Lord Jesus Christ challenged his opponents? He was referring to his own innate purity and beauty and loveliness, and he says, Which one of you convicteth me of sin? Examine the petals of my life.

Place your fingers, so to speak, upon their texture. Look at the purity and the whiteness of my nature, and tell me if you find any stain, if you discover any blemish at all. And the remarkable thing was, there was not a man who responded to the challenge of the Savior.

There was not a man who could in any way indict him of sinfulness and point out any spot or blemish upon his lovely character. Men were amazed at Jesus Christ, and no wonder one of his disciples said in retrospect with regard to the Savior, To us who believe he is precious, he is precious. Jesus Christ, the lily of the valley, delicate, exquisitely made, growing beautifully in a world of ugliness.

Consider, I say, not only the location of the lily, but the beauty of the lily. But there is another point, I think, that my text yields as you study it in detail, and that surely is the thought of contrast. Listen again to the second verse.

As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. This seems to sum it up, does it not? The Lord Jesus Christ is the lily. Men and women are thorns.

The Savior is a flower. Mankind is a weed. Thorns are sharp.

They cause pain. The lily is gentle and excites wonder. Thorns are dull, and there is no color attached to them, and they have no obvious usefulness.

But he is white and colorful and radiates beauty. And when you place Jesus Christ in the context of humanity, so his loveliness stands out in relief. There is an immediate contrast, and even a fisherman like Peter sees this, as on one occasion he accosts the Savior, and he is absolutely mesmerized by the purity of Jesus Christ, by his altogether loveliness.

And Peter recognizes that what he is, Jesus Christ, is not. Jesus embodies all the virtues that Peter has never known. And the fisherman falls down, and he says, depart from me, O God, for I am a sinful man.

Your holiness is contrasted by my unholiness. Your purity by my impurity. Your graciousness by my grasping.

Lord Jesus Christ, depart from me, for I can have on natural grounds no relationship with such a person as you are. So Peter admires and is spellbound by the beauty of the Christ lily, by the beauty of Jesus Christ. But not all men will admire his loveliness in the way that Peter did.

Not all would praise God for the purity of Jesus Christ, but rather that very loveliness could provoke jealousy of a murderous kind. And this it did. The spiky thorns, if you will allow me to sustain the metaphor of Scripture, joined forces to crush the lily, as weeds sometimes choke a flower.

And so you see them, men and women, who have been captivated and captured by sin, working to erase the testimony of Jesus Christ from off this globe. We're working together to pluck the lily from out of the valley of this world. Caiaphas, Annas, Judas, the Roman garrison at Jerusalem.

Some of the temple police joining together, conspiring against the Christ. And when they have arrested him, what do you find them doing? You find them crushing his petals, endeavoring to despoil him, endeavoring to mar him. The thorns taking vengeance against the beauty of the lily.

Sinful men reacting to the righteousness and the purity of Jesus Christ. You see, in the valley of this world, they reckoned there was no place for such a lily of such outstanding purity as that of Jesus Christ. And thus one day they thrust him, they forced him to the top of the mountain outside of Jerusalem.

And there they did him to death. And was there ever an illustration in history of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, as when the thorns battled against the lily and endeavored to completely eradicate it and to crush it in the valley of this world. So my text speaks to me most clearly, most movingly, most convincingly of Jesus Christ, the exquisite lily born into the valleys of this world.

But stay with me for two or three more moments, if you will, for there is something else that suggests itself to me from the symbolism of these verses, something that is rich and most inspiring and encouraging. I want you to think about the fragrance of the lily, the fragrance of the lily. There is more to the beauty of a flower than its looks.

There is something that it emits, something that it discharges. We call it a scent or a perfume or a smell. And what was true of the lily of the valley on the natural level is also true of Jesus Christ on the spiritual.

Was there ever a fragrance emitted by any person like unto the fragrance of Jesus Christ? There is an aroma that is generated, so to speak, by the Lord Jesus Christ that is lasting. And this is why the writer of Scripture has to say of Jesus, his name is as ointment poured forth. You know, sometimes in a room when a spray of flowers has been brought in, you're conscious of its fragrance, and that fragrance lingers on, does it not, even when the flowers have been taken out.

And that was the case with the Lord Jesus. There was a fragrance that he left even when he wasn't there, a fragrance that people recognized. Pilate's wife caught something of the scent of the Lord Jesus Christ when she writes to her husband and implores him to have nothing to do with that just man.

She realizes that there's something unique about his life. There's an aroma that he generates that is attractive to her womanly instincts. And so many times in Scripture, particularly amongst the womenfolk, you find them attracted to Jesus Christ as though there was something about his personality that they'd never seen in any other man before, something about his nature that remained with them even when he was ministering in a different part of Palestine.

His name was ointment poured forth. And when you had inhaled something of that fragrance, when you were spiritually sensitive and desiring to be brought into a relationship with God, you never forgot it. You never forgot the time that the lily of the valley was brought into your life.

And this fragrance affects men and women. It transforms them. It is the Apostle Paul who speaks of the early church as having a savor of the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And that very word savor, does it not suggest to you the idea of fragrance, the idea of perfume? Do you remember when the early disciples, Peter and John and the rest of them, were persecuted by the Jewish priest in Jerusalem? How their enemies had to agree to this, that there was something about Jesus that had rubbed off in their lives. They took knowledge, the Scripture says, that they had been with Jesus, and the fragrance of the lily of the valleys is still being emitted today in the valleys of this world. Jesus Christ is still here.

You say that you rubbed shoulders with Jesus. Is there anything of the perfume of his nature about you? You see, this establishes the genuineness of your conversion or otherwise. Is there something that's rubbed off on you of the Lord Jesus Christ? Can it be said of you by ordinary people that they're taking some note of your life because it is obvious that you have been with Jesus? The perfume of the lily of the valley has rubbed off into your own personality.

But stay with me along this line even for seconds longer, for there is something about the lily, indeed about every flower that you and I know very well. When you crush a flower, it emits more perfume. When you crush a rose, so you smell its scent more clearly.

And when Jesus Christ died on the cross of Calvary, on that skull-shaped hill outside the holy city, these thorns that had conspired against the lily, although they did not realize it, by their very hideous planning and bringing about of the death of Jesus Christ were causing his fragrance to be emitted down the valleys of this world in a way that it had never done before. When Jesus Christ was crushed at Calvary, the word of God tells me that the perfume of his holiness was to fill the corridors of this world so that men and women may catch a whiff of the fragrance of Jesus and down the years of time may respond to the gospel that he came into this world to bring. There is a loveliness, there is a fragrance at Calvary as the lily of the valleys was crushed by cruel, murderous hands.

And my friend, I want to tell you this, that God Almighty has placed the Christ lily in the valleys of this world so that you and I might recognize by contrast the ugliness of our lives. And as we appreciate that Jesus Christ can bloom in our situation, so the word of God invites us to request that Jesus Christ might come into our hearts and lives and transform it. For it is only the fragrance of his loveliness that can clear out the impurity of our sinfulness.

It is only as Christ is born within us and becomes a veritable lily within our own lives that we can be transformed and taken one day into the garden of God's eternity, there to blossom before God forever. Never be depressed at the thought of viewing the Christian life as a journey down the valleys, because you never find the lilies on the mountaintop. You find them in the valley of your experience, and that is where Jesus Christ is ready to meet you.

And not only to meet you, but to transform you and to beautify you and to cause a fragrance to come into your personality that shall be so obvious that all shall realize that the lily of the valley has rubbed off his beauty and his fragrance unto you. Amen. And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, the fellowship and friendship of the Holy Spirit be our experience now and until our Lord Jesus returns.

Amen.