FBC Morning Light – May 13, 2022

Well, a good Friday to you, and thankfully the last day that I speak to you out of a can and have these kind of crummy quality pictures, but nevertheless, again, I'm Rynder. I'm in Ohio recording these sessions.

I'm at a conference, been a good conference, good sessions, challenging, encouraging to be a better expositor of the word and so forth. But nevertheless, I wanted to get these recordings done and prepared for this week.

The Challenge of Recording on the Road

And consequently, I'm doing them from the hotel room with a laptop camera and microphone, and that just, that doesn't quite, doesn't quite do the job. But nevertheless, it is what it is. So today we were reading in Song of Solomon and in our Bible reading chart, it divides Song of Solomon into two days.

And honestly, I did, I never read Song of Solomon that way. How can you break it up like that? But you know, that's, that's the way the chart worked. Nevertheless. So I want to just bring out a couple of things from the Song of Solomon that are good principles for married life, if you will, for couples, Song of Solomon is often thought of as an allegory of the relationship between Christ and his church, may very well be.

It's, there's some debate as to who the parties are involved. You know, some traditional interpretation says that this is a, this is a back and forth between Solomon and one of his wives, a bride. Other, another interesting commentator, John Phillips, I read several years ago, took a.

Different approach.

He said, no, Solomon is the interloper. This is really the relationship here in the back and forth is primarily between the Shulamite and her lover, a shepherd. And Solomon comes and takes her away from her love, the shepherd, and takes her to himself.

Catching the Little Foxes in Marriage and Daily Life

Well, whatever the case, there's some back and forth in this, in this little book that is helpful to couples. And one of the things, one of the things that comes out here in chapter two, verse 15, that is good for married life, but also very applicable in everyday life in many different ways.

So chapter two, verse 15, the comment is made, catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards for our vineyards are in blossom. The little foxes that spoil the vine has come to be a kind of a, a little catch phrase for dealing with the little things.

Because if you watch out for the little things, because those little things can become big problems if you don't. And I think that's good advice. And it's very good advice for, for marriage and a married life, that it is the little things that can end up undermining the health of a marriage.

How many times have you heard the cliche of the toothpaste tube, right? You know, a young couple gets married and they're, they're all starry eyed about each.

Other.

And, and, uh, you know, have this wonderful wedding and they have a glorious honeymoon, but things go awry on the honeymoon when the, the wife finds out the new bride, the newly wet bride finds out that her, her, what she thought was her practically perfect husband squeezes the toothpaste tube from the middle of all things.

How can you squeeze the toothpaste tube from the middle? And she gets very frustrated with him because he doesn't squeeze it from the end and you got to squeeze it and it ends up being a fight.

Well, that's a little thing.

That wasn't a little thing. You deal with the little things because if you don't deal with the little things, they'll spoil the vine. And that, that of course is applicable in every area of life. You know, you got to deal with little things in, in your home, for example.

So you, you've got a little, so you've got a little dripping leak in the faucet, eh, no big deal. Well, no big deal ends up being a big deal when you get your water bill and it only gets.

Worse.

So you deal with the little thing before it becomes a big thing. And on and on we can go with that kind of application. You can apply it at work. You can apply it, uh, we can be applied in a, in a church situation.

You can apply it any, in any area of life. But again, Song of Solomon is talking about the relationship between a man and a woman and their relationship. And so, you know, deal with the little foxes lest they spoil the vines.

Praising the Positive in Marriage

The other thing I want to point out in this little book is that the two parties, uh, the, the shepherd and the Shulamite, uh, they, they're in several places. They're talking about the other party and they speak in glowing expressions of affection.

Uh, so for example, in chapter four, verses one to seven, uh, he says, uh, the, the, the shepherd says, behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are like doves. And he goes on talking about the different aspects of her physical beauty that he sees and he praises her for her physical beauty.

And in chapter five, verses 10 and following, the Shulamite does the same thing to him. She says, my beloved is radiant and ruddy, distinguished among 10 ,000. His head is the finest gold. His locks are wavy, black as a raven.

His eyes are like doves beside streams of water, bathed in milk, sitting beside a full.

Pool.

And she goes on describing very affectionately, uh, the, the beauty of her lover. And then in chapter six, verse four, again, the man to the woman says, you are as you are beautiful as tourism, my love, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners.

Now that may not be a kind of expression we would use toward, uh, our bride, uh, to describe her beauty, but they understood what that meant. That was a beautiful thing, uh, to, in, in that, uh, in that time, he says, turn away your eyes from me for they overwhelm me.

Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes that have come up from the washing and so forth. And he goes on to describe her beauty in a very positive way.

And again, it turns around in chapter seven, verses one to nine with her praising him. How beautiful are your feet in sandals? Or I'm sorry, again, this is a praise of her. How beautiful are your feet in sandals of noble daughter and so on and so forth.

Just praising. And there's not a negative word in the whole thing. There's not a negative word. Each party is concentrating on and focusing on and praising the positive things about the other. And they're not nitpicking about the little things that get under their skin.

And I think that is so instructive for us that we need to be careful how we speak to our spouse, our lover. How do we, do we praise or do we nitpick? Do we praise or do we criticize? Now, sometimes we have to point out things that need to be dealt with, need to be addressed that our partner doesn't see and it has to be corrected.

We understand that. But what do we concentrate on? What do we focus on? That should be the rare exception. What should be the common expression is appreciation and praise for our partner's beauty and fine things and the things that we appreciate about them.

And I think all of us can stand to improve in that area. I speak for myself. Maybe I should just say, I know I need to improve in that area. And I don't know about you, but I find that to be quite challenging.

And may we take that challenge. May we deal with the little things and may we praise, praise the positive things. Father, I pray that you would strengthen our homes, our marriages, our relationships with one another by employing these couple of simple principles that would be so helpful in our.

Relationships.

So help us in this, we pray. We ask it in Jesus name, amen.

Closing Encouragement and Lord's Day Services

All right.

Well, I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I hope on the Lord's day, you can make it out to services again on Sunday morning in the Sunday school time. We're looking at the subject of the Lord's day and a Sunday morning worship service in the book of first Peter and Sunday evening in the gospel of Mark.

So looking forward to gathering together on the Lord's day. Hope to see you then. Good day. God bless.