The very bad news of the gospel regarding the sinner’s hopeless and diabolical situation is more than matched and surpassed by the very good news of the gospel that speaks of the incredible saving power of God. It is the power to transform us into forgiven saints with the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and the power to enable us to live a life that is pleasing to him. All this has nothing to do with self-improvement and everything to do with the matchless grace of God.

Mankind’s greatest and most urgent need is to get right with God. That of course presupposes that we are NOT now right with God. We are sinners who live in alienation from and hostility to God. The whole point of the life and work of Christ was to make a way for lost sinners to be reconciled to a holy and just God.
But we must be clear as to what biblical conversion is all about. And that means being clear about our condition as sinners and our complete inability to save ourselves and turn our lives around. Since I am again reading through Jeremiah, I recently came upon a familiar passage found there. Jer. 13:23 says this: “Can an Ethiopian change his skin or a leopard its spots? Neither can you do good who are accustomed to doing evil.”
Our condition as sinners is one of utter hopelessness and inability. Consider some of the things the New Testament says about who we are as sinners and what we are like as sinners:
-spiritually sick (Luke 5:31-32)-rebellious children (Luke 15:11-32)-lost (Luke 19:10)-enslaved (John 8:34)-in darkness (Acts 26:18)-remain in darkness (John 12:46)-under the power of Satan (Acts 26:18)-God’s enemies (Romans 5:10)-slaves to sin (Romans 6:22)-influenced and led astray to mute idols (1 Corinthians 12:2)-spiritually blind (2 Corinthians 4:4-6)-God’s enemies (2 Corinthians 5:18-19)-slaves to those who by nature are not gods (Galatians 4:8)-dead in your transgressions and sins (Ephesians 2:1)-objects of wrath (Ephesians 2:3)-dead in transgressions (Ephesians 2:5)-darkened in their understanding (Ephesians 4:18)-separated from the life of God (Ephesians 4:18)-darkness (Ephesians 5:8)-in the dominion of darkness (Colossians 1:13)-alienated from God (Colossians 1:21)-his enemies (Colossians 1:21)-idol worshippers (1 Thessalonians 1:9)-held in slavery (Hebrews 2:15)-not a people; who had not received mercy (1 Peter 2:10)-sheep going astray (1 Peter 2:25)
That is quite a list. It is a damning indictment of those who we are without Christ – which is all of us. And that is why Scripture speaks about what it is like to have a real, God-given conversion:
-We are moved from death to life.-We are moved from darkness to light.-We are moved from the kingdom of Satan to the kingdom of God.-We are moved from bondage to liberty.-We are moved from slaves to sons.-We are moved from being enemies of God to friends of God.
So a radical change takes place when the sinner is converted. It has to be radical: we are talking about bringing spiritual life to dead men and women. And that is why the Apostle Paul for example speaks about the power of God when it comes to the conversion of sinners.
As he said in Romans 1:16: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” The word for power (dunamis) is used two other times in this chapter: in v. 4 which discusses God’s power in raising Jesus from the dead, and v. 20 which speaks of God’s power in creating the world.
Many Christian commentators could be mentioned here who have spoken to these truths. C. S. Lewis for example said this: “Fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement: he is a rebel who must lay down his arms.” And again: “Conversion requires an alteration of the will which does not occur without the intervention of the supernatural.”
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Church history is filled with the debates over whether to read this book as an allegory of God’s love for his people or as a literal picture of human marriage. Frankly, I’m not convinced we have to choose only one of those options. If it’s not about human marriage, then the metaphors of God’s relationship with his people would make no sense at all. And if it’s not also about God’s relationship with his people, then Paul, Hosea, and Ezekiel (among others) wouldn’t have gone there. This book gives us much wisdom for dating, marriage, sex, and conflict. And in so doing, it shows us the paradise of knowing Christ and being known intimately by him.

When the Lord God made the heavens and the earth, there was only one thing that he declared was not good: the man’s being alone. So God promptly invented romantic love, and his word is very clear about how such love works. It begins with the problem of loneliness, which is not a result of sin but simply a result of being a created being. It proceeds when boy meets girl, and things start to feel really awkward. And the only way to make progress is with poetry, song, and celebration. The World’s Greatest Song (aka The Song of Songs) is here to help.
Literary Markers
The poetry in the Song of Songs flits about from character to character, as the woman, the man, and the daughters of Jerusalem all lift their voices in an intricate back-and-forth befitting the subject matter. As a result, the poetry can appear quite mysterious and dense. Thankfully, the poet makes use of two refrains that serve, with minor variations, as paint blazes on the trail to help us follow his train of thought.
Each refrain occurs three times in the book. The first refrain is “I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases” (Song 2:7, 3:5, 8:4). The second refrain is “My beloved is mine, and I am his” (Song 2:16, 6:3, 7:10). These two refrains provide the chief applications to the unmarried (do not awaken) and the married (join in mutual possession). And in addition, they help us to mark many of the book’s divisions.
In addition, the flow of most of the poems moves from separation to union (or reunion). The arcs of each section follow this general pattern where the lovers begin apart from one another and move toward one another to be together.
Walkthrough
The chief audience for the Song of Songs is the virgin daughters of Jerusalem, who are addressed all throughout the book. In this way, this book is something of a complement to the book of Proverbs, whose chief audience is the young men of Israel. This doesn’t mean that men have nothing to gain from the Song, but it helps us to understand why the woman is in the spotlight for much of the book.
After the book’s title (Song 1:1), we’re immersed right into the intoxicating nature of love, which is better than wine (Song 1:2-4). Then in the first main poem, the couple delights in the playful back-and-forth of getting to know one another and finding ways to spend time together as their attraction develops (Song 1:5-2:3). As they draw close, however, and move into a place of profound intimacy (Song 2:4-6), the woman emerges from the chamber to warn the virgins of Jerusalem not to awaken such love in themselves until the time is right (Song 2:7).
The second poem (Song 2:8-3:5) focuses on the wooing and courtship, but completely from the woman’s perspective. She describes the man coming to see her (Song 2:8-9), before quoting what he says—or what she hopes he’ll say?—to win her heart for life (Song 2:10-15). She longs for them to achieve mutual possession of one another (Song 2:16) but must still say goodbye at the end of the evening and send him back to his home (Song 2:17). This leads her to dream of what life would be like without him—a reality she cannot bear to accept (Song 3:1-4).
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Christ-centered worship, a set liturgy with its roots in the Reformation, a liturgy that isn’t pared down to mere outline, a church holding to a Reformed confession, a gospel-centered worship around the Lord’s Supper, and preaching that presents not law as the food for faith but Christ crucified as found in the gospel.

From the previous post – “Yet when it comes to a finding home church, I want to suggest that Christians (beggars all) indeed should be choosers!”
Picking up where I left off (Here) in my history tour:

We eventually landed in a small Anglican church. It was there that we began to not only appreciate but value the weekly repetition of the Holy Communion service in Book of Common Prayer – the reading of the Law, the unabashed and fully biblical general confession of sin, the declaration of absolution with the comforting words of Scripture, and the thoroughly gospel-centered Holy Communion liturgy.
The effect of this historic and Reformed liturgy was like participating in a weekly catechism of the faith once delivered to the saints. The liturgical worship assumed nothing, but rather led the believers through the essential cycle of the Christian life: repentance, forgiveness, and gospel grounded obedience. That path was via the reading of the Law’s with its holy standard of perfection (Lord have mercy), the confession of sin which highlighted not only sins “done and undone” but ourselves as “miserable offenders”, the declaration of pardon for all those who trust in the gospel of Christ, the confession of faith (Nicene Creed), a full presentation of the gospel of Christ as the church worships at the Lord’s Table, and the final corporate prayer of thanksgiving acknowledging the great salvation that God has given us through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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