WWUTT 1794 Sick With Love (Song of Songs 5:1-8)

Love Must Be Shown in Marriage and in Our Walk with God

If we are gonna say we love, we must also show that love. Husband, do you love your wife? Show her. Wife, do you love your husband? Show him. Do we love God? Then show it when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand The Text, teaching through a New Testament book on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and a Q &A on Friday. With our Old Testament study today, here's Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the Song of Songs. We are halfway through. We've completed four of eight chapters. We start in on chapter five today. If you wanna open up a Bible and join with me there, let me preface this by saying, although we've done this very tastefully, I've never been too descriptive.

Nonetheless, this is some mature subject matter, so you'll want to listen to this first before your younger ears hear it. Now, where did we end last week? We read chapter four. We witnessed the wedding, and then there was also the consummation of this union.

The groom took his wife into his chamber, and the two became one flesh. Now, that was only suggested. It wasn't described, because they're going in with one another at the end of chapter four, and then at the start of chapter five, the man describes having been satisfied after a night of lovemaking.

There are a lot of people that think that the Song of Songs is erotic poetry, but it's really not. It's not descriptive of the act itself, only suggesting things that take place. It's no more descriptive than, like, say, in Genesis 4 .1, where it says that Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.

Well, you know what happened there. It didn't have to describe it for you. So at the beginning of chapter five, the man expresses his delight, having known his wife and received his fill, and the language that he used here expresses that he is very full and satisfied.

So let me begin with that. Like I said, I read this verse last week, but let's start with that once again. This is the husband speaking. There's another line at the end of verse one, which I'll explain once again, and then the bride speaks with, like, a completely different setting that starts up in verse two.

So first of all, here is Song of Songs 5 .1. I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have picked my myrrh along with my balsam. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk.

This is the language that he uses to say that he has had more than his fill, and he is completely satisfied. I've picked my myrrh with my balsam. I've eaten my honeycomb with my honey, so I ate the honey and I had the comb, too.

I have drunk my wine with my milk. And then the last line here is not the line of the groom. It may be the line of the wedding party, but as I described last week, I believe it to be the blessing of God.

Now, it could come through the voices of the wedding party or the others that were with the groom and the bride. It could be the Lord speaking through them, but nonetheless, this is the voice of God blessing this union of this man to this woman.

And we read these words. Eat, friends, drink, and imbibe deeply, oh lovers. The Lord blessing this union and having given the gift of sex that a husband and wife may enjoy this intimacy with one another in the marriage bed.

That's exactly the people and the place that God has given this for. And there's no reason to be embarrassed by that. We're not middle school children. We don't need to be giggling at these sorts of things.

It's a wonderful thing for a husband and a wife to enjoy each other in this way, to desire one another's bodies, to continue to nurture that desire and that intimacy with one another. It's important that I mentioned that in fact, because things are gonna take a bit of a turn here as we go into the next part of Song of Songs.

But let me just remind you once again of the words that we read in Proverbs 5, 18 to 19. Let your fountain be blessed and be glad in the wife of your youth as a loving hind and a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times.

Be intoxicated always with her love. It is okay for you to be in love with your spouse, even find them attractive and maybe dream about when you can be intimate with your spouse again. That's not lust.

That's a good thing for a husband and wife to desire one another in such a way. Speaking of dreams, we're gonna jump into another dream here. So from the bride, we have witnessed a daydream and then there was a night dream.

What we read about next is something of a nightmare. Let me begin by reading in verse two, we'll go through verse eight, where the dream is described for us and then we'll go back through our text. So this is the woman, the wife, speaking here of her dream in Song of Songs 5, beginning in verse two.

I was asleep, but my heart was awake. A voice, my beloved was knocking, open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my perfect one, for my head is full of dew, my locks with the damp of the night. I have taken off my long sleeve garment.

How can I put it on again? I've washed my feet. How can I dirty them again? My beloved sent forth his hand through the opening and my feelings moaned for him. I arose to open to my beloved and my hands dripped with myrrh and my fingers with liquid myrrh on the handles of the lock.

I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and passed by. My soul went out to him as he spoke. I searched for him, but I did not find him. I called him, but he did not answer me. The watchmen who go about in the city found me.

They struck me and wounded me. The guardsmen of the walls took away my shawl from me. I call you to solemnly swear, oh, daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? Tell him that I am sick with love.

And then the others are gonna speak up in verse nine and they're gonna respond this way. What is your beloved that he is more than any other beloved? Oh, most beautiful among women. What is your beloved that he is more than any other beloved that thus you call us to solemnly swear?

Now that's a completely different reaction than the others have had previously in the poem. Like I said, this is an unusual dream, even a nightmare. So we'll explain those things as we go back through this.

So verse two, she says, I was asleep, but my heart was awake. This is just another way of saying that she was dreaming. She was asleep, but there's still, there's things going on in her mind, desires that she still feels in her heart.

And if you ever witnessed this in a dream where there's something that's happening in the dream and you want to go to it or you wanna do something in the dream, but you can't. Like the desire is there, but you can't make yourself do it in the dream.

Because it's like you just have to sit back and watch the cinematic scene take place in your dream. You're there, you're that person, you're witnessing these things, but you can't seem to make those things happen, right?

So that's what the woman is kind of experiencing here. She's witnessing something she wants to do, a desire for something, but she can't make herself do it because it's all part of the dream. So she's asleep, my heart is awake, she says, a voice.

My beloved was knocking. Well, wasn't she asleep in bed with him? We don't really have any sense of time changing here. Like has time moved on? Is this still the same wedding night? Are they asleep in the bed together?

We don't know. It's moving from one depiction in the poem to another depiction. It doesn't necessarily have to communicate to us that any time has changed, but the setting has changed. That's really what we grasp from the poem.

The setting has changed, so therefore we're in a different place at a different time. So if we've gone from the wedding to the night of consummation, and now we're in a dream, doesn't mean it's the same wedding night.

It's just a different setting, so it's a different time. So the groom comes to her saying, open to me, my sister, my darling. This is all a dream, so it's all very symbolic. My dove, my perfect one. He's called her that several times, called her a dove, that she is gentle to him.

And my perfect one, another way this is literally translated is that she's flawless. There's nothing wrong with her. So they're married, husband and wife, still sees her as perfect. Even in her dreams, she hears him say that of her.

For my head is full of dew, he says. My locks with the damp of the night. There's a desire, that's what's being depicted here. He's come for something, and he's anxious for it so much that he's sweat.

Now the word is dew, but it's though his head is so damp from sweat and his face, even from the desire that he's feeling, that it's as if the dew of the night has found its way to his head. He's not there with his bride, he's been outside.

So it being dew is also descriptive of him not being in the same place that she's in. She's indoors, she's in bed. He's not with her, he's outside of her. Now the desire that he has here is to make love to her.

That's what he wants to do again. He wants his bride so much that he, pardon the expression, is hot for her. Have you ever heard the expression, you just need to go take a cold shower? Whenever a man needs to calm down, something has made him sexually excited, maybe there's somebody keeping him accountable that just says, hey, you just need to go home and take a cold shower.

Well, that's what you might say to a guy just like this, but in his case, the only thing that's gonna satisfy his longing and his desire is his wife. But in this dream, she does not want him. Going on to verse three, she says, I have taken off my long sleeved garment.

How can I put it on again? I have washed my feet. How can I dirty them again? I mean, this is her saying, I've made myself ready for bed. I'm in bed, I've cleaned myself off. Why would I get up and go to the door and potentially make myself unclean for my bed again?

Now consider the next line, verse four, my beloved sent forth his hand through the opening and my feelings moaned for him. Now that might sound rather suggestive, but don't think of this in a Western world, American, modern day sort of a way.

The door handle was often not a handle itself. It was an opening in the door with a latch and you would lift up on the latch. So he's lifting his hand or he's putting his hand rather in the opening and he's lifting up on the latch, but he cannot open the door because the door is probably barred from the inside.

So she hears him doing that, trying to get in the door and where it says my feelings moaned for him, there are other translations that may say something to the effect of my heart went out for him or my heart felt for him or something to that degree.

It's really that the seat of her emotions was moved for him because when she feels or she hears him trying to get in, she feels guilty. He wants me, but I'm not putting any effort to be with him. In fact, I'm being lazy in bed and saying, hey, I've already gotten ready for bed.

I don't want to mess myself up again. And so she puts him off, feels him or hears him trying to open the door and yet her feelings moan for him. It's an expression of now she feels guilty for not giving her lover what he wants.

And so she says in verse five, I arose to open to my beloved and my hands dripped with myrrh and my fingers with liquid myrrh on the handles of the lock. Now that means now she's ready. She's made herself ready.

And now she's willing to share herself with her lover again. Now, all of this is happening in a dream. So we don't have the picture of her going over to her vanity, getting her myrrh out. She's not sighing and exasperated.

Fine, I'll get myself ready. No, she gets up and the fact that her hands are dripping with myrrh. And even when she touches the lock of the door, the myrrh that's on her hands, the fragrant ointment that she is wearing even gets on the lock demonstrates that she's ready for him.

Now her desire and her heart is even for him just as his desire is for her. But when verse six, I opened to my beloved, my beloved had turned away and passed by. She waited too long and he's not there anymore.

He realized I'm not gonna get my satisfaction here. Now, if you'll remember back to her previous dream, the previous night dream, she was looking for her beloved. She could not find him. Where did she go to find him?

She went to the city. Now we've not seen them in the city at all up until that point in her dream. They always had been out either on the hillsides or out pasturing the flocks or in the grove of trees wherever she was envisioning them being or them talking about meeting up together someplace.

But it was in her dream that she goes running into the city. Why? Because she thought his interest, his desire had gone after someone else. They waited too long. They didn't get married soon enough. So now his heart's gone after another woman.

In the book of Proverbs, the father warns the son about going down the street at night to that woman's house. The woman who will destroy your life if you go walking by her way. So he warns the son not to go that way.

So here we are still in the wisdom books and we have that same sort of a picture. Her concern that he's gone into the city maybe to find another woman to satisfy him. So we're gonna have the same thing happen here in this nightmare of hers.

The man wants to come to her. She hesitates, does not entertain his desire right away. Finally, when she desires him like he desires her, he's gone. And where does she fear he is gone? To go find another woman in the city.

Now he never does. And that's never the picture of his character in Song of Songs. This is an upright and just man. He's holy. There's really no blemish about him ever being described in Song of Songs.

This is a good man that she has married, but it's her concern. It's her thoughts getting the better of her in this situation. She's even experiencing a jealousy we're gonna see later on in Song of Songs in the midst of their marriage that she has a jealousy for him, afraid that he's gone out to pasture sheep and he's among the lilies, she will say, which means he's out there with the other maidens.

Is he gonna desire one of them more than he desires me? Perhaps there are some women, some wives out there who can relate to that with a concern for their husband and wondering, is he not gonna find me attractive or desirable anymore?

Here in this nightmare, this woman is feeling that way about her man. She did not satisfy him as she believes she should have, and now he's gone away. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and passed by.

My soul went out to him as he spoke. I searched for him, but I did not find him. So almost kind of like, you've seen this in some movies where a person, a character may be in a dream state and they hear a voice in the distance and they're going after the voice, but they cannot find the person.

That's kind of what's being described here. My soul went out to him as he spoke. I searched for him, but I did not find him. We've had this searching, the searching for one another all the way through Song of Songs.

Here they're married and still searching for one another. That journey, that quest for each other continues even in marriage. And there will be years and years that you will spend with one another and still be trying to find one another or figure each other out.

There may be situations that you have yet to encounter as a husband and a wife that you don't know how the other one's gonna react or respond or how this is going to try your marriage, any of those other things, with these kinds of scenarios that you have yet to face.

And so there will be in those moments and in those circumstances, a searching for one another again, looking for one another's hearts, trying to figure out what the other one is thinking, navigating these circumstances and these situations together.

That is a journey that we take together in our marriages. And we're always journeying together. There's always a sense in which we're searching for one another and finding out something new about the other.

There's still things that I find out about my wife that are absolutely fascinating, but that just keeps the marriage adventurous. It's great to still discover things about her and she thinks the same thing of me as well.

So there's a constant searching that's going on. Now we can translate this spiritually as well. This is what's going on between this husband and this wife, but translate this into our relationship with Christ.

We're constantly seeking after Christ. Now he doesn't seek us, but we seek him. He has already found us and brought us to himself. He has already known us from before the foundation of the world is said in scripture.

But we will continue searching for Christ in our lives. Not in the sense that we need to find him, but there are things that we will continue to find out about him. As this love and this relationship that we have with our Lord grows and deepens.

And there are things that he is going to show us about ourselves. Things that we don't even know yet about ourselves, because those circumstances that he is going to try us in have not yet come. Now, like the bride has done here, there are times when we will hesitate when the Lord has called us to something and we won't do it.

We may have the desire for it, perhaps in our heart we want to do it, but we don't do it. We hesitate and then we feel guilty about it. We know that the Lord is calling us to obedience. We know that there is something that he is telling us to do, but we don't do it.

We delay and delayed obedience is disobedience, my friends. And so we will feel guilty as a result of that. And we will begin to doubt even our own relationship with God because we haven't been obedient.

You could probably say this of your spiritual walk, the moments that you have most doubted the assurance of your salvation has been when you haven't been faithful in prayer or Bible study or attending church, or you've even been entertaining the passions of your flesh and you've been in sin.

In any of those moments, you are most likely to doubt the guarantee of your salvation. Come back to the Lord, come back to his word, be reminded of the promises that are given to us in Christ Jesus. He who died and rose again, ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, where he intercedes for us before the father.

If we have sinned, ask forgiveness for your sins. And as said in 1 John 1, 9, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We haven't yet finished up our section here.

So let's come back to this here in Song of Songs 5, 6. She says, I opened to my beloved, but he did not answer me. I called him and he did not answer me. Now consider verses seven and eight. The watchmen who go about in the city found me.

They struck me and wounded me. The guardsmen of the walls took away my shawl from me. These are the men that are supposed to be protecting the city. But instead of protecting the city, they are taking away from this woman, her innocence.

Now, I think it would be going too far to say that they molested her in some way. I don't know that that's necessarily what is being described for us. It's very innocent in its detail, but nonetheless, the suggestion of the symbolism of what's going on here is yet given.

The watchmen go about in the city. They found me. They struck me and wounded me. She's being abused by people outside her home. She's outside the safety of her home and she's being abused by people who are in the city.

They took away my shawl from me. The shawl is something that was unique to a woman to wear. So it demonstrates her femininity and they are taking away her modesty. When they take away her shawl, they take away her modesty.

So she is now ashamed. Now, this may not be people in the world that are abusing her and so therefore, now she feels shame. It could be her guilty conscience and the watchmen on the wall, which represent her conscience that is supposed to protect her.

Instead, because she did not answer to her lover when she had the opportunity to, she feels guilty about it now and her conscience is beating her up and even robbing her of her innocence. How did the groom describe her earlier?

In verse two, you are my perfect one. She doesn't feel that way. She now feels like she's blown this, she messed this up. What do I do now? So she says in verse eight, I call to you to solemnly swear, oh, daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, what will you tell him?

Tell him that I am sick with love. Almost as if to say, have you witnessed this? Have you seen what's happened to me by these watchmen? Have they've taken my modesty away? What will you say to my beloved?

Are you going to say to him that she's no good? And again, this is still her conscience. It's all part of a dream. So this is still her conscience that's weighing on her in this way. And she says, tell him that I am sick with love.

Tell him that my heart is for him. I do long for him. I do desire him. May he not feel like that I have rejected him. And then how do the others respond? Verse nine. Now this is a totally different kind of response than what the others have made previously in Song of Songs.

Verse nine, they say, what is your beloved that he is more than any other beloved? Oh, most beautiful among women. What is your beloved that he is more than any other beloved that thus you call us to solemnly swear?

In other words, we're not going to go after your beloved. He's yours now. You're married. You satisfy him. Why are you depending on us to have to go tell your beloved that you're sick with love? You tell him and show him.

And you satisfy him with your love. Consider the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 7, beginning in verse two. Because of sexual immoralities, each man is to have his own wife and each woman is to have her own husband.

The husband must fulfill his duty to his wife and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.

Stop depriving one another except by agreement for a time so that you may devote yourselves to prayer and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. So a husband's body belongs to his wife.

The two have become one flesh. A wife's body belongs to her husband and each of them has an obligation, a duty to fulfill one another's desires for each other. The wife here in Song of Songs has not done that for her groom.

And so she is being told, you satisfy him. You tell him you love him and you show him. Desire one another and fulfill those desires for each other. And we do this in honor of the Lord who gave your spouse to you, your husband to you, wife, your wife to you, husband.

So thank the Lord, be grateful for this gift of your spouse that he has given to you. And husband, you love your wife as Christ loves the church and wife, you submit to your husband as unto the Lord. As this picture of marriage is supposed to be a picture of the way that Christ loves his church, so may we not delay obedience to Christ.

If we profess our love for the Lord, let us also do in our profession of love. We don't just say we love God, we show it. For as Jesus said to his disciples in John 14, 15, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.

Marriage as a Picture of Christ and the Church

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your goodness toward us, your patience, your kindness, your love. And may we take the same grace that we have been extended by our Lord Jesus Christ and show that grace to each other, not holding sins against one another, not looking down on each other, but being patient with one another, forgiving each other as you have forgiven us so we must also forgive.

And help us to be obedient. We're obedient to the commands of our God and we are obedient in the sense that we are to love one another, showing a certain and unique kind of love within a marriage, but then we also love our children, we love our friends and family, we love our church and do all of these things in obedience to the Lord, our God, he who is love, God is love.

We love because you first loved us. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and let your friends know about our ministry.

Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word, When We Understand the Text.