Song of Solomon 5:16b: ALL DESIRE - A Live Coal From The Altar of God

So today we get to the part of the 16th verse of the 5th chapter that Spurgeon said he didn't know if he was qualified to speak on it in his sermon, which is unbelievable. And I've linked it in my show notes of what all Spurgeon had to say about this verse as you might imagine, not only about the verse, but he took this part of the verse and did this whole sermon on just what we're going to talk about today. He is altogether lovely. And he referred to it as a live coal from the altar of God. That's how powerful he considers those three words. He is altogether lovely is the English way to do it.

Of course, we're going to dig into those in so many different ways. But clearly Rashi and Matthew Henry, all three and Spurgeon all made reference to the actual Hebrew version of this, which is he is all everything, so to speak. Desire, you know, would be the way that you could actually render that those words from the Hebrew is all desires. And, you know, wow, when you think about that, as we talked about yesterday, that the idea of the hoof, the letter hoof is a crown and it's considered your desire. Well, he is all the crowns, right? He is everything.

And so, you know, I definitely don't feel worthy to speak on it either. However, I do want to point out some things that I wouldn't want anybody to miss while they're meditating on this on these three words and thinking about them because as we talked about these 10 different utterances that would give us this picture from the book of Genesis, right, which began with let there be light, right? We talked about his head of most fine gold and we went on down the list. And so today would be, in fact, it's verse 31. And God saw everything that he had made. Well, that word everything right there is the same word that is used in this verse that he is all together, that that same word, which is just simply a hoof, which has to do with desire. We were talking about and a lamed, which is your heart, which is encompassing everything here, which again is so much connected to desire. And then the way that that Solomon slash the Holy Spirit used that word lovely is he put an extra M in it to make it even more desire than desire.

So it's like desire to the max. Well, yes, Jesus is all that. And I also wanted to mention that, you know, we when we were talking about his belly being ivory inlaid with sapphire, I came across something last night I knew at one point in time, but I'd forgotten when I was thinking about his belly being inlaid with sapphire that the Jews hold to and very much believe that the Ten Commandments were written on a sapphire stone, right? And all the more when you think about, you know, that Jesus is the word.

And by the way, he's every letter, he's every jot and tittle, he's all those things. But how beautiful is that to think about when we're looking together all together lovely, that part of that idea of inlaid with sapphire clearly has to do with the law itself and his belly. So, you know, you can meditate on the ten utterances that were in in in Genesis clearly, because it's part of the Word of God. And we know all the creation reflects Jesus. You can meditate on the Bible itself, being clearly all these attributes that are described here by the Holy Spirit and Solomon in these ten utterances about Jesus. I mean, it's just one of the spectacular things we get to look at as we study this. And so maybe in your life you can remember, you know, and when I think about it, the whole thirteenth Psalm, how long will you hide your face from me, you know, forever?

How long will we seek counsel in our souls? You know, it's this whole idea of the desire of desires, this burning desire, and she so beautifully puts it with all she can. And I love Spurgeon's three main points of the sermon, which he describes from these words that, one, there's overwhelming emotion. And again, this being the burning coal from the altar, in other words, it's still burning to this day, believe me.

Overwhelming emotion, undivided, undivided affection. I mean, there's no desire or loveliness anywhere else, you know, that we want affection from. And then our ardent devotion, right? And so those are the three things that Spurgeon mentions in that sermon, and definitely worth mentioning.

And so, you know, I'm just taking this one section to do it. I know we'll end up with three episodes on this one verse, but this section, to me, has such deep, deep meaning, right? And so when I think about this in my own life, I couldn't help but note, you know, I've told the story before about the night he came to me, and, you know, I began to see his face and I started to scream, you know, I'm going to see his face, I'm going to see his face.

And I woke my wife up, you might remember the story, I hope you do. But simply put, you know, one night, he started to reveal his face to me and when he did, my heart screamed like it never had before. Well, the beginning of that conversation that night was, Robbie, what do you want?

And the end of that conversation was, now do you know what you want? And it gets back to, I had no idea, you may have some idea, but I had no idea how bad I wanted to see his glory, how bad I wanted to see his face. And it is the desire above all desires and I don't think that until we begin to see it more fully, we'll even begin to understand the desire that's there.

It's like Spurgeon says, this is the sea of which there's no way. It's like when he looked on everything he saw he had made and he said it was very good, just try to comprehend everything that he had made. I mean, take a look, one brief second up in the sky at night and see all the stars.

And then, you know, every little microbe that, you know, I don't know how he saw all that he made in one, you know, little item there in the sixth day and he said it was very good. Yeah. And so to possibly perceive all that is all desire is all in this one package is this unbelievable thing that tells us that we are going to enjoy him forever. Right. And so in your life, you know, have you had an experience like that?

Have you refreshed it lately? I just would recommend anybody take a hard look at the 13th Psalm because it's all about that. You know, how long will you hide your face from that? What we are, what our hearts long for, what we desire, if we could get that just strong enough as the crown of our life, being that which we are highly seeking for, you know, we would be well on our way, right, to what God has in mind for us. And so I pray, I really, really do, that you would grasp a little bit of this today and think about how amazing, amazing, amazing it is that at some point we get to see his face clearly and we will see all desire. And when we're talking about all here, it's like everything, like all, all of our desires are in one fell swoop. Unbelievable. Thank you for listening.