THE GOOD SHEPHERDESS – Charles Spurgeon
The Good Shepherdess
The Bride’s Shame and the Call for Help
“Tell me, O You whom my soul loves, where You feed, where You make Your flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of Your companions? If you know not, O you fairest among women, go your way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed your kids beside the shepherds‘ tents.” Song of Solomon 1:7, 8.
The bride was most unhappy and ashamed because her personal beauty had been sorely marred by the heat of the sun. The fairest among women had become swarthy as a sunburned slave. Spiritually, it is often so with a chosen soul. The Lord’s grace has made her fair to look upon, even as the lily, but she has been so busy about earthly things, that the sun of worldliness has injured her beauty. The bride, with holy shamefacedness, exclaims, “Look not upon me, for I am black, because the sun has looked upon me.” She dreads alike the curiosity, the admiration, the pity, and the scorn of men. She then turns herself to her Beloved, whose gaze she knows to be so full of love that her swarthiness will not cause her pain when most beneath His eyes.
This is one index of a gracious soul—that whereas the ungodly rush to and fro, and know not where to look for consolation, the believing heart naturally flies to its Beloved Savior, knowing that in Him is its only rest. It would appear from the preceding verse that the bride was also in trouble about a certain charge which had been given to her, which burdened her, and in the discharge of which she had become negligent of herself. She says, “They made me the keeper of the vineyards,” and she would wish to have kept them well, but she felt she had not done so, and moreover, she had failed in a more immediate duty—“My own vineyard have I not kept.” Under this sense of double unworthiness and failure, feeling her omissions and her commissions to be weighing her down, she turned round to her Beloved, and asked instruction at His hands. This was well. Had she not loved her Lord, she would have shunned Him when her comeliness was faded, but the instincts of her affectionate heart suggested to her that He would not discard her because of her imperfections. She was, moreover, wise to appeal to her Lord against herself.
The Call to Jesus Amid Sin and Troubles
Beloved, never let sin part you from Jesus. Under a sense of sin, do not fly from Him. That is foolishness. Sin may drive you from Sinai, but it ought to draw you to Calvary. To the fountain we should fly with all the greater eagerness when we feel that we are foul. And to the dear wounds of Jesus, where all our life and healing must come, we should resort with the greater earnestness when we feel our soul to be sick, even though we fear that sickness to be unto death.
The bride, in the present case, takes her troubles to Jesus, her distress about herself, and her confession concerning her work. She brings before Him her double charge, the keeping of her own vineyard and the keeping of the vineyards of others. I know that I shall be speaking to many this morning who are busy in serving their Lord, and it may be that they feel great anxiety because they cannot keep their own hearts near to Jesus—they do not feel themselves warm and lively in the divine service. They plod on, but they are very much in the condition of those who are described as “faint, yet pursuing.” When Jesus is present, labor for Him is joy, but in His absence His servants feel like workers underground, bereft of the light of the sun. They cannot give up working for Jesus, they love Him too well for that, but they pine to have His company while they are working for Him. And like the young prophets who went to the woods to cut down, every man, a beam for their new house, they say to their Master, “Be content, we pray You, and go with Your servants.”
The Need for Communion with Jesus in Work
Our most earnest desire is that we may enjoy sweet communion with Jesus while we are actively engaged in His cause. Indeed, beloved, this is most important to all of us. I do not know of any point which Christian workers need more often to think upon than the subject of keeping their work and themselves near to the Master’s hand. Our text will help us to this under three heads. We have here, first, a question asked—“Tell me, O You whom my soul loves, where You feed, where You make Your flock to rest at noon?” Secondly, an argument used—“Why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of Your companions?” And, thirdly, we have an answer obtained—“If you know not, O you fairest among women, go your way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed your kids beside the shepherds’ tents.”
I. A Question Asked
Every word of the inquiry is worthy of our careful meditation. You will observe, first, concerning it, that it is asked in love. She calls Him to whom she speaks by the endearing title, “O You whom my soul loves.” Whatever she may feel herself to be, she knows that she loves Him. She is black, and ashamed to have her face gazed upon, but still she loves her Bridegroom. She has not kept her own vineyard as she ought to have done, but still she loves Him. Of that she is sure, and therefore boldly declares it. She loves Him as she loves none other in the entire world. He only can be called, “Him whom my soul loves.” She knows none at all worthy to be compared with Him, none who can rival Him. He is her bosom’s Lord, sole prince and monarch of all her affections.
She feels, also, that she loves Him intensely—from her inmost soul she loves Him. The life of her existence is bound up with Him. If there is any force, and power, and vitality in her, it is but as fuel to the great flame of her love which burns for Him, alone. Mark well that it is not, “O You whom my soul believes in.” That would be true, but she has passed further. It is not, “O You whom my soul honors.” That is true too, but she has passed beyond that stage. Nor is it merely, “O You whom my soul trusts and obeys.” She is doing that, but she has reached something warmer, tenderer, fuller of fire and enthusiasm, and it is, “O You whom my soul loves.”
Love as the Foundation of True Service
Now, beloved, I trust many of us can speak so to Jesus. He is to us the Well-beloved, “The chief among a myriad.” “His mouth is every sweetness, yes, all of Him is loveliness,” and our soul is wrapped up in Him, our heart is altogether taken up with Him. We shall never serve Him aright unless it is so. Before our Lord said to Peter, “Feed My lambs,” and “Feed My sheep,” He put the question, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” And this He repeated three times, for until that question is settled, we are unfit for His service. So the bride, here, having both herself and her little flock to care for, avows that she loves the spouse as if she felt that she would not dare to have a part of His flock to look after if she did not love Him—as if she saw that her right to be a shepherdess at all depended upon her love to the Great Shepherd. She could not expect His help in her work, much less His fellowship in the work, unless there was first in her that all-essential fitness of love to His person.
The question, therefore, becomes instructive to us, because it is addressed to Christ under a most endearing title. And I ask every worker here to take care that he always does his work in a spirit of love, and always regards the Lord Jesus not as a taskmaster, not as one who has given us work to do from which we would gladly escape, but as our dear Lord, whom to serve is bliss, and for whom to die is gain. “O You whom my soul loves,” is the right name by which a worker for Jesus should address his Lord.
II. An Argument Used
Now, note that the question, as it is asked in love, is also asked of Him: “Tell me, O You whom my soul loves, where You feed.” She asked Him to tell her, as if she feared that none but He would give her the correct answer. Others might be mistaken, but He could not be. She asked of Him because she was quite sure that He would give her the kindest answer. Others might be indifferent, and might scarcely take the trouble to reply, but if Jesus would tell her Himself, with His own lips, He would mingle love with every word, and so console as well as instruct her. Perhaps she felt that nobody else could tell her as He could, for others speak to the ear, but He speaks to the heart. Others speak with lower degrees of influence—we hear their speech but are not moved. But Jesus speaks, and the Spirit goes with every word He utters, and therefore we hear to profit when He converses with us.
III. An Answer Given
We have here AN ANSWER GIVEN by the Bridegroom to His beloved. She asked Him where He fed, where He made His flock rest, and He answered her. Observe carefully that this answer is given in tenderness to her infirmity, not ignoring her ignorance, but dealing very gently with it. “If you know not”—a hint that she ought to have known, but such a hint as kind lovers give when they would gladly forbear to chide. Our Lord is very tender to our ignorance.
There are many things which we do not know, but ought to have known. We are children when we should be men, and have to be spoken to as unto carnal—unto babes in Christ, when we should have become fathers. Is there one among us who can say, “I am not faulty in my knowledge”? I am afraid most of us must confess that if we had done the Lord’s will better, we would have known His doctrine better. If we had lived more closely to Him, we would have known more of Him. Still, how very gentle the rebuke is. The Lord forgives our ignorance and condescends to instruct it.
Christ’s Gentle Rebuke and His Tender Love
Note next that the answer is given in great love. He says, “O you fairest among women.” That is a blessed cordial for her distress. She said, “I am black,” but He says, “O you fairest among women.” I would rather trust Christ’s eyes than mine. If my eyes tell me I am black, I will weep, but if He assures me I am fair, I will believe Him and rejoice. Some saints are more apt to remember their sinfulness, and grieve over it, than to believe in their righteousness in Christ, and triumph in it. Remember, beloved, it is quite as true today that you are all fair and without spot, as that you are black because the sun has looked upon you. It must be true, because Jesus says so.
Let me give you one of the sayings of the Bridegroom to His bride—“You are all fair, My love; there is no spot on you.” “Ah, that is a figure,” you say. Well, I will give you one that is not a figure. The Lord Jesus, after He had washed His disciples’ feet, said, “He that is washed needs not except to wash his feet, for he is clean every whit.” And then He added, “And you are clean.” If you desire an apostolic word to the same effect, let me give you this— “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”—anything—any little thing or any great thing! Jesus has washed His people so clean that there is no spot, no wrinkle, nor any such thing upon them in the matter of justification before God— “In your Surety you are free, His dear hands were pierced for thee! With His spotless vesture on, You are holy as the Holy One!”
The Lord’s Words on Our Righteousness in Christ
How glorious is this! Jesus does not exaggerate when He thus commends His church. He speaks plain, sober truth. “O you fairest among women,” says He. My soul, do you not feel love to Christ when you remember that He thinks you beautiful? I cannot see anything in myself to love, but He does, and calls me, “All fair.” I think it must be that He looks into our eyes, and sees Himself, or else this—that He knows what we are going to be, and judges us on that scale. As the artist looking on the block of marble sees in the stone the statue which he means to fetch out of it with matchless skill, so the Lord Jesus sees the perfect image of Himself in us, from which He means to chip away the imperfections and the sins until we stand out in all His splendor. But still it is gracious condescension which makes Him say, “You are fairest among women,” to one who mourned her own sunburned countenance.
Seeking Communion with Christ and His Way
The answer contains much sacred wisdom. The bride is directed where to go that she may find her beloved, and lead her flock to Him. “Go your way forth by the footprints of the flock.” If you will find Jesus, you will find Him in the way the holy prophets went, in the way of the patriarchs, and the way of the apostles. And if your desire is to find your flock, and to make them lie down—very well, go and feed them as other shepherds have done—Christ’s own shepherds whom He has sent in other days to feed His chosen.
I am very glad, in speaking from this text, that the Lord does not give to His bride in answer to her question some singular directions of great difficulty, some novel prescriptions singular and remarkable. Just as the Gospel is simple and homely, so is this exhortation and direction for the renewal of communion. It is easy, it is plain. You need to get to Jesus, and you want to bring those under your charge to Him. Very well, then, do not seek out a new road, but simply go the way which all other saints have gone. If you want to walk with Jesus, walk where other saints have walked. And if you want to lead others into communion with Him, lead them by your example where others have gone.
Following the Paths of the Saints
What is that? If you want to be with Jesus, go where Abraham went in the path of separation. See how he lived as a pilgrim and a sojourner with his God. If you would see Jesus, “Come you out from among them, be you separate, touch not the unclean thing.” You shall find Jesus when you have left the world. If you would walk with Jesus, follow the path of obedience. Saints have never had fellowship with Jesus when they have disobeyed Him. Keep His statutes and observe His testimonies, be jealous over your conduct and character, for the path of obedience is the path of communion. Be sure that you follow the ancient ways with regard to the Christian ordinances—do not alter them, but keep to the good old paths. Stand and inquire what apostles did, and do the same. Jesus will not bless you in using fanciful ceremonies of human invention. Keep to those which He commands, which His Spirit sanctions, which His apostles practiced.
The Necessity of Teaching Christ’s Doctrines
Above all, if you would walk with Jesus, continue in the way of holiness, and persevere in the way of grace. Make the Lord Jesus your model and example, and by treading where the footprints of the flock are to be seen you will both save yourself and them that hear you. You shall find Jesus and they shall find Jesus too. We might have supposed that the Lord would have said, “If you want to lead your flock aright, array yourself in sumptuous apparel or go get your music and fine anthems. By these fair things you will fascinate the Savior into your sanctuaries.” But it is not so. The incense which will please the Lord Jesus is that of holy prayer and praise, and the only Ritualism which is acceptable with Him is this—pure religion, and undefiled before God and the Father—to visit the fatherless and the widow, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. This is all He wants. Follow that, and you shall go right, and lead others right.
Feeding the Flock with the True Gospel
Then the Spouse added, “Feed your kids beside the shepherds’ tents.” Now, who are these shepherds? There are many in these days that set up for shepherds, who feed their sheep in poisonous pastures. Keep away from them. But there are others whom it is safe to follow. Let me take you to the 12 principal shepherds who came after the great Shepherd of all. You want to bless your children, to save their souls, and have fellowship with Christ in the doing of it—then teach them the truths which the apostles taught. And what were they? Take Paul as an example. “I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.” That is feeding the kids beside the shepherds’ tents, when you teach your children Christ, much of Christ, all of Christ, and nothing else but Christ. Mind you, stick to that blessed subject. And when you are teaching them Christ, teach them all about His life, His death, His resurrection. Teach them His Godhead, and His manhood. You will never enjoy Christ’s company if you doubt His divinity. Take care that you feed your flock upon the doctrine of the atonement. Christ will have no fellowship with a worker unless he represents Him fairly, and you cannot represent Christ truthfully unless you see the ruddy hue of His atoning blood as well as the lily purity of His life.
Feeding the Flock with Truth and Doctrine
“Feed your kids beside the shepherds’ tents.” Then will you teach them the atoning sacrifice and justification by faith, and imputed righteousness, and union with the risen Head, and the coming of the great One, wherein we shall receive the adoption, to wit, the redemption of the body from the grave. I speak the truth and lie not when I say that if we want to teach a congregation so as to bless them, and keep in fellowship with Christ at the same time, we must be very particular to teach nothing but the truth—not a part of it, but all of it. Preach that blessed doctrine of election. Oh, the deeps of divine love which are contained in that blessed truth! Do not shirk it, or keep it in the background. You cannot expect Christ’s presence if you do. Teach the doctrine of man’s depravity. Lay the sinner low. God will not bless a ministry which exalts men. Preach the doctrine of the Holy Spirit’s effectual calling, for if we do not magnify the Spirit of God, we cannot expect that He will make our work to stand. Preach regeneration. Let it be seen how thorough the change is, that we may glorify God’s work. Preach the final perseverance of the saints. Teach that the Lord is not changeable—casting away His people, loving them today, and hating them tomorrow. Preach, in fact, the doctrines of grace as you find them in the Book. Feed them beside the shepherds’ tents.
Feeding All Ages with the Same Truth
Yes, and feed the kids there—the little children. I begin to feel more and more that it is a mistake to divide the children from the congregation. I believe in special services for children, but I would also have them worship with us. If our preaching does not teach children, it lacks some element which it ought to possess. The kind of preaching which is best of all for grown-up people is that in which children also, will take delight. I like to see the congregation made up not all of the young, nor all of the old, not all of the mature, or all of the inexperienced, but some of all sorts gathered together. If we are teaching children salvation by works, and grown-up people salvation by grace, we are pulling down in the classroom, what we build up in the church, and that will never do. Feed the kids with the same gospel as the grown-up sheep, though not exactly in the same terms. Let your language be appropriate to them, but let it be the same truth. God forbid that we should have our Sunday schools the hotbeds of Arminianism, while our churches are gardens of Calvinism. We shall soon have a division in the camp if that is so. The same truth for all—and you cannot expect Christ to be with you in feeding your little flocks unless you feed them where Christ feeds us. Where does He feed us but where the truth grows?
Teaching the Full Gospel and Guarding the Truth
Oh, when I read some sermons, they remind me of a piece of common by the roadside, after a hungry horde of sheep have devoured every green thing. But when I read a solid gospel sermon of the Puritans, it reminds me of a field kept for hay, which a farmer is at last obliged to give up to the sheep. The grass has grown almost as high as the sheep, and so they lie down in it, eating and resting. Give me the doctrines of grace, and I am in clover. If you have to feed others, take them there. Do not conduct them to the starved pastures of modern thought and culture. Preachers are starving God’s people nowadays. Oh, but they set out such beautiful China plates, such wonderful knives and forks, such marvelous vases and damask tablecloths! But as for food, the plates look as if they had been smeared with a feather, there is so little on them. The real gospel teaching is little enough. They give us nothing to learn, nothing to digest, nothing to feed upon. It is all slop and nothing substantial. O for the good old corn of the kingdom. We need that.
A Call for Faithfulness in Feeding the Flock
And I am persuaded that when the churches get back to the old food again, when they begin to feed their flocks beside the shepherds’ tents, and when, in practical living Christians, the saints, get back to the old Puritan method, and follow once again the tracks of the sheep, and the sheep follow the tracks of Christ—then we shall get the church into fellowship with Jesus, and Jesus will do wonders in our midst. But to get that, each individual must aim at winning it for himself—and if the Lord shall grant it to each one of us, then it will be granted to the whole, and the good times which we desire will certainly have come. My beloved, do you desire to work with Christ? Do you want to feel that Jesus is at your right hand? Then go and work in His way. Teach what He would have you teach, not what you would like to teach. Go and work for Him as He would have you work, not as your prejudices might prescribe to you. Be obedient. Follow the footsteps of the flock. Also be diligent to keep hard by the shepherds’ tents, and the Lord bless you more and more, you and your children, and His shall be the glory.
A Final Word to the Unconverted
I have spoken only to God’s people. I wish there had been time to speak to the unconverted too, but to them I can only say this—may God grant you grace to know the beauties of Jesus, for then you will love Him too. May He also show you the deformities of yourselves, for then you will desire to be cleansed and made lovely in Christ! And remember, if any one of you wants Christ, He wants you. And if you long for Him, He longs for you. If you seek Him, He is seeking you. If you will now cry to Him, He is already crying after you. “Whoever will, let him come and take of the water of life freely.” The Lord save you for His name’s sake. Amen.
Portion of Scripture Read Before Sermon—Song of Solomon 1