Jet Tour Of Song Of Solomon (part 3)

It is great to be back to Bethlehem Bible Church. You know, when you go out of town on vacation and visit other churches, you come back home thinking, the church that I'm allowed the privilege to pastor is a wonderful church.

You forget how much you love it until you are gone. Kim and the kids will be back

Wednesday, flights and Lord willing. Thank you to Dave, Steve, Lewis, Dan and the men who preached on Sunday night.

I don't know if you know congregation that it is a rare thing to find a church that has so many people who along with their spouses as support can preach the word faithfully from the pulpit.

I didn't worry that there was going to be an insurrection. I wasn't worried that it wasn't going to be biblical. I wasn't concerned and just a couple of times called home to check on everyone.

And so thank you especially to the preachers. Another quick note before we begin today, for those of you that have been concerned or praying for my health trials, right now just with all the blood tests and the

CAT scan, everything has come back negative. I will live to see another day it looks like. But in the midst of all that,

I thought to myself, if this is the last day for me, if I'm going to die today, what would

I change? Whitfield was asked that very question. If you're going to die in one month, what would you do?

And he handed out his day timer as it were and said, this is what I would do. I'm already living like Christ will return soon.

And I want you to know that after these bouts with near death and sharks and other things,

I am committed to preaching the Bible with clarity as God would give me that grace, with conviction to teach it as sufficient, authoritative, inerrant, and good for you to grow in respect to knowing

Christ Jesus your Lord and substitute. And I want you to know that as I visited other churches the last four weeks,

I am frankly tired of the man -centered worship that I find. PowerPoint and drama and skits and fill in the blanks and preaching so you will feel good, the congregation.

And we, I think, as a church, broadly, don't understand that when we come to worship, it's not about ourselves.

It's about worshiping the triune God. Luther used to say that some people approach

God as if He were a shoe clerk's apprentice. And people respond, even as I've been out of town, well that sermon was good, or that made me feel good, that message was just for me, oh

I like the music. And all those kinds of discussions are just selfish ramblings of someone who needs to know that, as Jonathan Edwards said, the direct proportion of worship is to the proportion of God's majesty and holiness and awesomeness, and we only worship

God because Jesus Christ was killed on our behalf. It cost Him His blood for us to worship

God. And as long as I'm alive and get to preach here, I want to try to show you from God's Word that God is the

King, and we are not consumers. We are worshipers, and we have been allowed the privilege to worship.

It is His grace that allows us to come to Him. Worship in the New Testament often was going to a sovereign and kissing his hand in deference.

It was also going down in front of someone, going down before them and putting your face to the dust, because you knew

He was so great. And as you teach the Bible verse by verse, and as you teach the Bible, showing what

God intends, it gives you that view, doesn't it? And so for as long as I live, and that might just be until this afternoon,

I want to preach the Word of God in context to you, and then we all get to say, isn't

God great? Not I felt good at worship, but isn't God good? He deserves my praise and my wonder and my awe and my honor.

And to come to the Word of God that He has revealed to us, He didn't have to tell us anything, and yet He has told us in His Word.

This is what I want you to know. Embrace it, understand it, and by my Spirit's grace, obey it.

Well, let's turn our Bibles, please, to the Song of Solomon this morning, part three of three, Lord willing.

The Song of Songs, the Song of Solomon. I don't know if you're new here, but we've been doing a three -part study of the

Song of Solomon, and I am committed to teach all the Bible, therefore I want to practice what I preach and teach one of the most difficult books in the

Bible, what a liberal theologian called Eros Without Shame. This is a book about God's endorsement of marital sexual love.

And you have to ask yourself the question, why would God put something like that in the Bible? Yet I am convinced in my mind that this book is the pure milk of the

Word. Are you? Do you believe that in it you may grow with respect to salvation as you study it?

Do you believe that Song of Solomon is God -breathed and is profitable for teaching?

I do. I looked up some synonyms for the word profitable from 2 Timothy 3, and these are some of those.

Useful, beneficial, advantageous, helpful, it lends a hand, it is positive, valuable, of use, constructive.

Preaching Song of Solomon from the pulpit on Sunday morning is all those things. It is not unhelpful. It is not negative.

It is not unvaluable. It is not destructive. It is not something like Jerome said, unless you're 30, don't read it.

One man even had the gall to say this. Preaching on the Song of Solomon in most congregational settings is difficult.

The language is so frank and the theme so specialized that the messages would probably not minister effectively to the entire church.

Younger children, persons recently divorced, older men and women who are single may find the love motifs either puzzling, embarrassing, or painful.

Not all of us may be married, but all of us need to know all of God's word, true? All of us can see here's a picture of what

God has given. He has not only given us Jesus Christ as our substitutionary atonement,

He has confirmed raising Him from the dead, that that sacrifice pleased the Father, but He's also given us every other good thing.

I find it odd that the evolutionists will say, well, romantic love is a chemical feeling, a feeling induced by chemicals.

No. If you're single and want to get married, I hope this song propels you to get married.

If you are married and having difficulties, I pray that you'll ask the Spirit of God to help you model a marriage like this in the

Song of Songs. If you're older and widowed, I hope you look back and say, God, You gave me that husband, and I so thank

You for that. And if you have the gift of singleness, this is the book for you to understand so that you might help other people.

I believe it's relevant, and I believe if you look at this book like a Jew would in the old days, you would say, God permeates every area of my life, sexuality is a big part of my life, so would not

God speak of that topic? Of course He would. And this is a great antidote to the licentious society we live in.

Yes? If we are going to learn about romantic love, erotic love, marriage love, then are we going to go to Hollywood?

Are we going to go to pornography? Are we going to go to society? No. God affirms and confirms in the

Bible that He has created male and female. He has created them to be together. He has designed intimacy.

It is His idea, and He speaks of it strangely in a poem, in a love poem, in a

Near Eastern love poem found right in your Bibles. Outside of the last two times on Preaching Song of Solomon, who has ever heard a sermon, a whole sermon

Sunday morning from the Song of Solomon? Some have. Did you preach that, by the way?

Okay. It isn't strange when you really think about it.

God wants to address that. And again, if you say, but I'm not married. Friends, I want to recall your mind to what

I just said earlier in my introduction, that this sermon isn't necessarily for you.

It is worshiping God as we hear the truth proclaimed, and then the Spirit gives us understanding so we might even minister to others.

This has been an amazing study for myself, and if we'll just have a quick catch -up in Song of Songs 1 .1,

we'll see that the flow basically is courtship wedding maturation.

And so far we've discussed courtship and the wedding and the wedding procession, but not the maturation.

So we'll just quickly catch up from 1 .1 -5 .1 and then off to the maturation this morning as we will see that mutual intimacy in the sanctity of marriage is good, and God has designed this to bring

Him glory. Well, 1 .1 it says right there, the

Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. This is a superlative. If you were Jewish and you were trying to say this is the best of the best, this is something that's good, this is wonderful, this is great, you would say something like the

King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Holy of Holies. Out of the 1 ,000 and how many songs did

Solomon write? Five. 1 ,005. This is the one that's in the canon. Here the wisest man ever to live outside of Christ Jesus wrote some love poems, and this is the one we get to study.

I can't believe in the last probably eight weeks of my life I've got to study poetry. I've never liked poetry before.

I like this poetry. It's amazing to see what God teaches us in the genre that we would in an overarching way call the wisdom literature.

This is in wisdom literature that teaches us why is living, and it doesn't teach us the way we like to be taught. Three points in a poem.

It only gives us the poem. It gives us a picture of poetic love so that we might say, oh, that would be good to copy.

Oh, I understand that better. See how these two people in love relate, and I think I should probably do that same. It is not thou shall love your wife, thou shall do this, you better not do that.

It's just set up in a poem without any imperatives, without any commands, but wise for us to pay attention and live.

Like this psalm talks about, especially for the married ones. It's not an allegory.

It's not a type. It's not a drama. It's not a collection of cult liturgies. It is a poem about marital love.

Well, there's the court shift that happens in chapter 1, verse 2 and following as the Shulamite, this lady from Shunem, we don't know her name.

This is a story about Solomon and the Shulamite. We just give her description from where she lives.

It's daydreaming and she's thinking about her future husband. They're not yet married. And it says in verse 2,

May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine. And out of the gun, bang!

It starts with this talk about love. And this isn't the word for overarching love. It's not the

New Testament equivalent for agape love. This is erotic, physical, intimate love. And she's longing for the day to be married.

May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. For your love, same word love translated in Proverbs 7,

Come let us drink our fill of love until morning. And she is looking forward to that day to be with her husband.

It says in verse 3, Your oils have a pleasing fragrance. Your name is like purified oil.

Therefore, the maidens love you. It's not just physical. His character, his name, who he is is also praised among the people.

And the attraction is mutual. In verse 9, he says to her, To me, my darling, you're like my mare among the chariots of Pharaoh.

Remember what that was about? You let a single mare loose with all the stallions in an army and what would happen?

Chaos! I even found this week that at the Battle of Kadesh in the reign of Pharaoh, Thutmose III, this actually happened.

Here comes all the chariots of the male stallions. Let's let out a few fillies. It's mutual.

She says in verse 16, How handsome you are, my beloved, and so pleasant. Indeed, our couch is luxuriant.

She says in chapter 2, verse 1, I'm the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys. Those aren't names for Christ.

That's what a lady is calling herself. I'm just like a little meadow in the field. A little flower in the meadow, rather. But he says,

Oh, no. Compared to everybody else, you're a lily, but they're thorns. Verse 2, Like a lily among thorns, so is my darling among the maidens.

And then off in the springtime, they go to the country and just pour out their love language to each other.

The only kind of love language I like. That is to say, there's a book about different love languages.

It's like any other fad. It comes and it goes. But this is real love language.

She has a nightmare, though, in chapter 3, verse 1. It might not all come to fruition. And then there's the bridal procession in chapter 3, verse 6.

Who is this coming up from the wilderness? The text says what, but really, we ask ourselves the question,

Who is it? And it's Solomon. Can you imagine the king with all the pomp and the circumstance and the regality of it all?

And then they shut the curtain, as it were. The formal ceremonies are over.

It's a private time now. They're married and they can enjoy each other. And he basically starts talking about how she looks.

And he describes her from the head and he works his way down. And he says in verse 7, You're altogether beautiful, my darling, and there is no blemish in you.

And that's just like the eyes of every lover. You can't see some blemish in the one you love. She's been pure up to this time, verse 12.

He says to her, A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a rock garden locked, a spring sealed up.

She has been inaccessible. She has been pure and chaste, holy. And then the center theologically of the book is chapter 4, verse 16 and 5.

Awake, O north wind, she says, on their wedding night, and come, wind of the south. Make my garden breathe out fragrance.

Let its spices be wafted abroad. May my beloved come into his garden, now called his garden, and eat its choice fruit.

And what's happening here is without vulgarity, without obscenity, with language of metaphor.

There's language of parallelism. There's language like a veil that cloaks any kind of language that would be wrong.

God, in a poem with metaphoric language, shows us that here's the consummation. And she says, I am now yours.

You possess me fully. And then it says in chapter 5, verse 1, do you notice all the my's?

Solomon says, I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my myrrh along with my balsam.

I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey. I have drunk my wine and my milk. And again, decent words.

Again, she is his fully and completely without reservation. And he is very thankful for that.

And then it sounds like we have words from the singers, the daughters of Jerusalem, the virgins of Jerusalem, or it could be of God even, and I think it is.

Here's God's endorsement of sexual love and marriage. Eat friends, he says to them.

Drink and imbibe deeply, oh lovers. God doesn't stutter when he says,

I affirm and I endorse and I give approval to this because I created it. Hebrews chapter 13 says, marriage is to be held in honor among all and the marriage bed is to be what?

Undefiled for fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. The marriage bed is to be undefiled.

The cote is to be undefiled. Cotus in marriage, coitus in marriage is to be undefiled.

He judges those who fornicate and who are adulterers. But on the flip side, if he judges the impure sexual sin, he blesses pure sexual activity.

And now we move to the life of love. Now we move to the maturation. The last 15 minutes was just a catch up.

And now we move to chapter 5 verse 2. We've seen courtship, wedding, and now we'll move to marriage and its maturation.

As Socrates said, by all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy. If you get a bad wife, you'll become a philosopher.

What we're going to do as I proclaim this truth to you is we're going to give you some lessons. I will give you some lessons extracted from chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8.

They're not explicitly in the text, thou shalt do this, but just some good implicit pastoral exhortations to help you.

And the first one is difficulties in marriage are a given, but they can help mature the marriage.

Difficulties are a given. And that's exactly what happens here early in chapter 5. There are difficulties in marriage.

How many people here are married? How many people have never had a difficulty in marriage? Steve raised his hand.

Well, it's not on your account, I can tell you that. And again, this is poetry, so it doesn't say, count it all joy, my brethren, when you experience various trials.

But we'll just see that there is a difficulty here in the marriage, but it doesn't have to kill the marriage.

It can mature it. Probably in a dreamlike state again, she says in Song of Solomon 5 .2.

And remember, this is not some kind of narrative where everything chronologically just has to work out perfectly, and sometimes these ladies show up and give the refrain, and where do they come from?

And again, it's just poetic language. And she says, I was asleep, but my heart was awake. We don't know how much time has passed from chapter 5, verse 1, and the consummation to now.

But she was sleeping, sleep state. A voice, my beloved was knocking.

Open to me, my sister, my darling, my love, my dove, rather, my perfect one.

I mean, he's just laying it on. For my head is drenched with dew, my locks with the damp of night. Maybe he's been out working in the fields, and he's coming home, and there are amorous desires that he has.

Danny Akin said, in the ancient Near East, it was a custom for a husband and wife to occupy separate bedrooms.

But there's an excuse. She's indifferent. Husbands have their problems as well.

This particular case, it's more about the Shulamite. I have taken off my dress, my undergarment. How can I put it on again?

I've washed my feet. How can I get them dirty again? How can I dirty them again? As one commentator said, one weak excuse after another.

And I'll stop there just to remind you that there are difficulties in marriage when it comes to sex, finances, all kinds of other things.

We are fallen people. I think God's Word addresses how we can resolve conflicts well.

Dorothy Rosby, in an article entitled, It's Living Together That Makes Marriage Difficult, told the story of a woman who shot her husband because he ate her chocolate.

It is truly the little things that destroy relationships. Margarine, chocolate, nylons on the towel rack here in the sink.

I once heard about a couple who fought for more than four hours over a rubber band. He had it and she wanted it.

You're laughing. Conflicts will be there. They're ordained by God through the channels of a fallen world and sinful people.

But it's not the question of, well, we never let our kids have a conflict. It is what happens when there is a conflict and how do we respond in a godly fashion?

God wants us to handle trials in a way that glorifies Him. True, whether you eat or whether you drink, whatever you do, do all for the glory of God, including your marriage difficulties.

I'll just give you a few little hints on the side if you have a conflict. Number one, don't bring up past resolved conflicts.

When you're fighting fair, when you're arguing, when you're debating, whatever sanctimoniously you call it, when you disagree, don't bring up past conflicts that have been resolved.

Proverbs 17 says, he who repeats a matter separates intimate friends. You don't even have to bring it up to this person.

May I also say to you, number two, do not escalate the conflict by calling names. You're just like your mother, idiot, slob, dumb.

Those would not be good ways to biblically resolve a conflict. Sarcasm or ridicule or insults or shut up would not be wise.

Exaggeration, you always do that, you never do that, would not be good. Maybe you often or frequently or regularly do this.

It is not good to mind read, somehow attributing motives to someone that only

God knows, only the Lord weighs the hearts. It's not good to induce guilt.

Look how you've made me feel because of all this. It's not good to have revenge or punishment.

I read about one woman who grounded her husband in punishment. It's not good to have an argument over something that are preferences that the spouse doesn't know.

I hate blue carpet. Well, if you've never told me that you hated blue carpet, I can't know that. Instead, we should be wise about the battles we choose to fight.

As Brother Lewis said this morning, rebuking is not a spiritual gift found in 1 Corinthians 12. Confrontations between spouses should be few and rare.

And if you are the one who is always confronting your spouse, may I say it is probably your own spiritual weakness and your own immaturity and your own impatience.

Over confronting is not good. For love covers what? A multitude of sins.

I could ask you this question, what you should do is, are you the peacemaker? Romans 12 says, if possible, so far it depends on you, be at peace with all men.

Are you the one that gives in? Are you the one that stands at the end? Well, there's much to say about conflict resolution, but we must move on.

Let's go back to the passage here of Song of Solomon, chapter 5, verse 5.

And she says now, she's thought a little bit more about it, and she knew that was wrong.

I rose to open to my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh. Matter of fact, I know what he is coming for, and I'm going to bring some aphrodisiac myrrh, and I'm going to put the myrrh on the handle of the bolt, and my fingers with liquid myrrh on the handles of the bolt, she says literally in chapter 5, verse 5.

And he's going to get the suggestion. But I opened, verse 6 says, to my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and had gone.

It doesn't say she ran out, but it says my heart went out to him as he spoke. I searched for him and did not find him.

I called on him, but he did not answer me. Again, maybe all a dream. The watchmen who make the rounds in the city found me.

They struck me and wounded me. I don't think they really did that. If they did, they thought that she was a prostitute, not dressed properly.

The guardmen of the wall took away my shawl from me. Maybe she's having a guilty conscience.

I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, she says, verse 8, if you find my beloved as to what you will tell him, for I am lovesick.

I need him. Can you help me find him? And now with great poetry, these ladies ask her why he's so great, and then she gets to tell.

What kind of beloved is your beloved? O most beautiful among women, what kind of beloved is your beloved?

That thus you adjure us. Oh, now she's going to have this admiration song.

Oh, I'll tell you how great he is. Which gives us the second lesson extracted from these chapters.

The first one is there are difficulties in marriage, but you can solve them to the glory of God. Number two, if you are married, speak well of your spouse in front of others.

Speak well of your spouse in front of others. It's one of the things that I can't stand is when I'm around someone and they say something bad about their spouse.

If it's counseling and he does this or that, that's one thing, but just unsolicited bad -mouthing your spouse.

You're bad -mouthing you, especially if you're a man. You're one. We'll see the

Shulamite just say wonderful things about her spouse in front of other people. I could ask you men and you women, when's the last time you said something nice or affirming or attractive about your spouse to someone else?

One of the reasons I don't like going out to lunch with Steve Cooley is it is inevitable that whatever food we have, if the food's not good, he'll say it's not as good as Janet's.

And if the food is great, he'll say it's almost as good as Janet's. I mean, it's over and over. I'm like,

Steve, I know you love Janet. I know you love her cooking, but this is me talking, and he doesn't get it.

It's just one after another after another, always talking about Janet this and Janet that. That's a good thing.

We're to speak well of God's gift to us, to others. It's called thanksgiving.

And she just lays it on. Look at how she says it, chapter 5, verse 10. My beloved is dazzling and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand.

He is the chief. He is conspicuous. The chief means he carries a standard. And if you had carried a big banner or standard in the

Middle East, it would be obvious from far away. Everyone can tell. She goes from general to specific praise.

His head's like a gold, pure gold. His locks are like clusters of dates and black as a raven.

He's not bald. He doesn't have gray hair. He's young. Looks good to me.

His eyes are like doves beside streams of water. Bathed in milk and reposed in their setting.

His cheeks are like a bed of balsam, banks of sweet -scented herbs. His lips are lilies dripping with liquid myrrh.

She's going overboard. She's irrevocably out of her mind for this guy. And if you don't want to talk about your spouse to others with reference to liquid myrrh, that's fine.

But say something good. Show that you're thankful to God. His hands are rods of gold set with beryl.

His abdomen is carved ivory inlaid with sapphire. I mean, she is staring at him like many years ago, 20 -some years ago when

I went to Florence, Italy, and stood in line to see Michelangelo's what? David. And people are just standing there for so long you have to be shushed away.

And, you know, the line needs to be pushed along. Standing at Michelangelo's masterpiece, David. And she just loves her husband.

She's not afraid to tell to anyone either. His legs are pillars of alabaster set on petals of pure gold.

His appearance is like Lebanon. Choices, cedars, majesty, beauty.

Great stuff is Lebanon. It's not the bad cheesy stuff. His mouth is full of sweetness and he is wholly desirable.

And look at how tender this is. This is my beloved. And this is my what? Best friend.

Oh, daughters of Jerusalem. His mouth, literally palate. She's just anticipating that deep, long kiss.

He's wholly desirable. Friends, talk well.

Speak well of your spouse in front of others. Why should they look for him?

We just saw. Well, where to look is now the question. Chapter 6, verse 1. Where has your beloved gone, O most beautiful among women?

Where has your beloved turned that we may seek him with you? If he's that great, we have to look too. We have to see.

We have to help. My beloved has gone down to his garden. He called her a garden, metaphorically.

But now he's got other gardens too, as Solomon did. He loved gardens, as we know from Ecclesiastes. To the beds of Balsam to pasture his flock in the gardens and gather lilies.

I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He who pastures his flock among the lilies.

Lesson number 3 for us this morning. Number 1, we've seen difficulties are certain.

So respond to them biblically. Number 2, speak well of your spouse. Number 3, be quick to forgive.

There's not a verse in here that says she forgave him. I mean, he forgave her. But he doesn't have to because it's a glory to cover a what?

Not just a sin, but a transgression. Don't cross that line. She crossed that line. He said, I'll forgive that.

And just his countenance, his attitude. He just loves her. You can just tell by the way he responds.

I like the story of Clara Barton, the founder of the Red Cross in the United States. She was asked about something negative that happened in her life where someone hurt her.

She responded to the questioner this way. I distinctly remembering that I forgot that.

And that's exactly how he acts. I'm going to hold this against you. I'm going to treat you this way until you make it all right.

I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. There's just implied forgiveness here. Solomon says in verse four, you are as beautiful as tears on my darling.

As lovely as Jerusalem. As awesome as an army with banners.

You have a formidable, terrible influence over me in a good way. Turn your eyes from me.

They've confused me. Here's the king of Israel. It confused me. They overpower me.

Then settle me. I'm weak at the knees. Don't even look at me. Don't give me that glance. Your hair is like a flock of goats that have descended from Gilead.

And there's some things that we saw earlier as he's praised her in earlier chapters. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes which have come up from their washing, all bare twins.

Not one of them has lost their young. You've got a full set of teeth. It looks good. Your temples are like a slice of pomegranate behind your veil.

It's like the French poet in the 12th century said, Fountain of beauty, perfect love, you light up all the world.

And I, for all of us wretches, plead for mercy. Now, whether the next verse in chapter 6, verse 8, talks about David's concubines that Solomon inherited, which wife is this, and all these other discussions are for another time.

But there's just one that he cares about here. There are 60 queens and 80 concubines and maids without number, semicolon.

But my dove, my perfected one, is unique. She's the one. She is her mother's only daughter.

She may have other sisters, but she's the best of the best, even with daughters. She's a pure child of the one who bore her.

The maidens saw her and called her blessed. The queens and the concubines also. And they praised her, saying, even they are praising her.

Who is that that grows like the dawn, as beautiful as the full moon, as pure as the sun, as awesome as an army with banners?

As the light comes up over the horizon and you get a little glimpse of it, you think, the sun in full display is going to be awesome.

I get an inkling of it now, but what about the full weight of the sun rays? And so here they say, just a little bit makes me think, this of you, what is she going to be in all her glory?

Who is this that grows like the dawn, it says. Shulamite says in verse 11,

I went down to the orchard of nut trees to see the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the wine had budded or the pomegranates had bloomed.

Again, do you notice the implied forgiveness there? He didn't say, you did that. I remember all the details.

I'm so bitter and everything else just implied forgiveness. And I can ask you the question, pastorally, are you a forgiver?

Is there somebody you need to talk to to forgive them? I know sometimes in the church, I find out people are mad at me and I don't even know they're mad at me.

And if I've done something to offend you, I want to make that right. But how do I make it right without you coming to me? And it's no different when you're with your spouse.

You've been treating your spouse a certain way for the last six months because you just can't get over that transgression. Then, friends, go for the glory of God.

She gets kind of transported up into the man's chariot again with this poetry. Verse 12,

Before I was aware, my soul set me over the chariots of my noble people. Just kind of there in the daughter, say, verse 13,

Come back, come back, O Shulamite, come back, come back, that we may gaze at you. Why should you gaze at the Shulamite as at the dance of two companies?

There's not a dance of these companies. I don't know what this dance is or was that people reading it back then would know. They're staring.

Which brings us to the fourth lesson. Difficulties in marriage are a given, but you can solve them by the Spirit's power.

Number two, speak well of your spouse. Number three, be quick to forgive. And number four, your communication of affection, marriage, should increase.

Your communication of affection should increase. We are going to see that even though he was ogling and googling and ogling his wife with his words of communication in chapter 4, they have increased now after they've been married.

It's one thing to speak well of your spouse on your honeymoon, but how about later? And that's what we're going to see right here, the maturation of these two.

And look at what he says now. He does reverse order. Instead of starting at the top and working his way down, he does the other way.

How beautiful, chapter 7, verse 1, are your feet in sandals, O prince's daughter.

The curves of your hips are like jewels. The work of the hands of an artist.

It's like a master craftsman has made you. Regal. Your navel is like a round goblet which never lacks mixed wine.

Your belly is like a heap of wheat fenced about with lilies. I said to myself,

I don't want to laugh when I get to that one, but wine, wheat, main source of food, wheat.

Main source of drink, wine. You give me satisfaction. You nourish me.

This was not back in the days where stomachs had to be twiggy flat kind of thing.

It's a different culture. But this is praise. If your wife likes that kind of praise, you give it to her.

If she doesn't, pick something else, men. To each his own.

But he's praising her. There's nothing, you know, the modern day audience, we laugh, I laugh.

But the audience back in those days wouldn't laugh because they would know the language of the day. Verse 3, your breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.

There's symmetry and softness there. Your neck is like a tower of ivory. Your eyes like pools of heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabin.

Your nose is like the Tower of Lebanon which faces towards Damascus. I've read about 15 commentaries on Song of Solomon, and I still can't get the nose is like the

Tower of Lebanon, and so he just loved it, that's all I know. Your nose is like the

Tower of Lebanon. For some, your nose is like the Tower of Babel. But others, it's highly crafted, the best stuff.

Our communication towards our spouses should increase as we mature in our love. You say, well,

I'm not good with poetry. Then just write something out. Start with writing if you can't communicate it verbally. I have a secret you can't say that I told you, but I read in a

Tommy Nelson book about how he wrote a love letter to his spouse, stuck it in the

Song of Solomon, part of her Bible, got up and preached from the

Song of Solomon. He said, turn your pages to the Song of Solomon. There it was. I thought,

I'm doing that. So I wrote this letter for Kim, and she was running the race in the morning at this 10K, and then service started at 1030, so she was going to have to maybe come straight to church from the 10K and sit in the back, you know, it's

California -style shorts and everything. So I put the love letter together, and I put it right in the Song of Solomon and set the

Bible out right by the door so she wouldn't forget. And I was so worried she wouldn't show up with her

Bible. But anyway, she did. And you know what? She hated that letter. She has despised me ever since.

She could not believe I had the gall to write her such a letter. You think that's the way she responded? I bet you, man, you used to write little love notes to your spouses when you were dating.

I bet you used to write them when you were first married. I don't know about you, but when

Kim writes me a little love letter, I have a file for those love letters. And I love to read those things.

This is the mature couple speaking that way. You don't say, well, we're too mature for that kind of talk.

We don't want to talk that way when the kids are around. Friends, if you have kids in the family, your children, and I'm going to explain myself, so hang in there with me before you pelt me with rocks, your kids better think there is a sexual relationship between you two.

That is to say, mommy loves daddy. They hug, they kiss. There are obviously many inappropriate things that can be done in front of children.

I don't mean that. I just mean that mommy and daddy love each other. I mean, I can count to five before Gracie runs over.

I grab Kim really close. I hold her in real tight in the kitchen. And Gracie's got to get right in there.

She's slipping in between. She's like, break it up. Break it up. It's not wrong if kids see that.

I think it's wrong if they don't. You're teaching your kids that mommy and daddy love each other. The way they talk about each other, it's the same thing.

Well, our kids don't see us resolve conflicts. We're not going to talk about this in front of the kids. Dads, come on.

Talk about it in front of the kids so they can see the model of conflict resolution for the glory of God. Don't yell at your wife in front of the kids or call them names or anything, but still, you can teach the kids so much.

Why is this in the Bible? Why is this good for you to know? Because we learn.

It's wisdom literature. He says in verse 5 of chapter 7, Your head crowns you like caramel, and the flowing locks of your head are like purple threads.

The king is captivated by your tresses. Can you imagine the mighty, awesome king is weak at the knees because of someone's hair?

Samson was destroyed as well as Absalom by his own hair, but here we have a king destroyed by his loved one's hair, as it were.

He literally is captivated or captured. He's a prisoner of love as he looks at her.

John Milton in Paradise Lost said, Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, in every gesture, dignity, and love.

When was the last time you said this next verse, or at least the first two words, man, to your wives?

Verse 6, How beautiful and how delightful you are, for my love with all your charms. You are a delightful woman.

You're a daughter of delights literally. You say, Well, I don't think that way about my wife anymore. Friends, husbands, can

I just give you one word? Repent. Can I give you an extra word?

Stop watching so much TV and Hollywood billboards and the advertising that is designed to do one thing to you, to create discontentment, to create dissatisfaction.

Well, compared to all these girls on TV, my wife isn't so good. We are to be satisfied with our spouses.

We have a duty to be content with our wives that God has given you. And in most cases, you picked.

And you're not all that great as it were either, man. I'm included.

Steve said to me the other day, he saw the picture of the elders up on the board. He said, Ministry's aged you, Mike. I said,

Yeah. Associate pastor has too. Verse 7, Now, by the way, have you been thinking about your trials, your medical condition, your financial condition, anything else in life?

If you have been trying to pay attention, if you have a Bible open, you are engulfed and enmeshed into the word of God, haven't you been?

That's why many times you come to worship and I think, well, so -and -so brought an unbelieving friend. And this is not evangelistic.

So -and -so is really hurting today and I wish I could comfort them. But sometimes the comfort is there's a great God who gives good gifts because he's good and generous and gracious.

And let's just be now enthralled with the word as we forget everything.

How can you be satisfied with your wife if you're a porn addict? How can you be satisfied with your wife if it's one show after another show after another show?

Well, verse 7 says, And we're running out of time. I usually take two verses and spend a week on them, but now we're just, this is the jet tour, so hang on.

Verse 7, Your stature is like a palm tree and your breasts are like its clusters. I said,

I'll climb the palm tree and take hold of its fruit stalks. Oh, may your breasts be like clusters of the vine and the fragrance of your breath like apples.

How do you pollinate a palm tree? Well, you climb up the male tree and get some of the things there and then you climb up the female tree and tie it up there.

And basically, it's very obvious what he's saying he'd like to do now. The image is obvious. And your mouth is like the best wine.

And as couples mature and as love would have it, she finishes what he says.

Isn't this neat? He says your mouth is like wine and then she responds,

It goes down smoothly for my beloved flowing gently through the lips of those who fall asleep.

She interrupts the thought and finishes it. And as their voices intermingle, so too do their kisses.

Verse 10, I am my beloved and his desires for me. Which gives me the fifth lesson. Difficulties are there, but you can solve them to the glory of God.

Number two, speak well of your spouse. Number three, be quick to forgive. Number four, communicate your affection to your spouse.

And number five, pledge loyalty to each other often. Pledge loyalty to each other often.

When Kim and I were married, I pledged my loyalty to her this way, in a very immature way. I said of our sexual exclusivity,

I said, Honey, strike one, you're out. And then she said to me,

Strike one, you're out. That was very immature. And now

I like to tell her, When I'm 90 and I can't run anymore, I'm gonna still chase you around the house.

Till death do us part. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you by the grace of God.

We're in this thing to the very end. B .B. Warfield, who taught at Princeton for 34 years, was 25 years old.

He married Ann Pierce Kincaid, and they went on a honeymoon to Germany. During a fierce storm,

Annie was struck by lightning, and she was permanently paralyzed. He cared for her 39 years.

He seldom left his home for more than two hours at a time for those years. That is love.

And they expressed this love to each other. Verse 10, I am my beloved, she says, and his desire is for me.

Couples, Satan attacks God's institutions. He attacks the government, he attacks the church, and he attacks what?

Marriage. And if something represents Jesus Christ loving the bride, marriage, do you think he will attack that to besmirch

Jesus Christ? Absolutely. And I'm not gonna make you do this now, but I see this loyalty and this love language of commitment back and forth so often.

I was reading in the year 2000, Paige Patterson had 550 couples stand up hand -in -hand and heart -to -heart and reaffirm their marriage vows.

Now, once I was at Grace Church and some guest speaker came, we had to stand and hold our wives' hands and look at them in the eyes and repeat these marriage vows again, and I thought it was really dopey.

I thought it was pretty stupid. I thought it was kind of like wearing glasses up in the pulpit and some kind of church growth thing. Again, I'm not gonna make you do it today, but I don't think it's dopey anymore.

I think it is a good thing to reaffirm your love for your spouse and your commitment to the very end.

It is very much a Christ -like love where he had his disciples and he loved them to the what? To the end.

And here's what Paige Patterson penned for the husbands to say. Husbands, may this be your prayer if you are married.

My precious and honored wife, this day I renew before God my covenant with you. I covenant today sacrificially to love you as Jesus loves his church.

I covenant to bestow always on you abundant honor. I will seek to know your needs and to provide for them physically, materially, mentally, and emotionally.

I will seek your well -being, happiness, and success above my own. Above all, I covenant to be the spiritual leader of our union, to provide a spiritual example through my walk with Christ, to teach the

Bible, to pray for my family, and to lead family worship. I will be faithful to you mentally, physically, and emotionally, and avoid all that is pornographic, impure and unholy.

I will not be angry or bitter against you, nor let the sun go down on my wrath. I will not keep books on evil.

I will cultivate tender affection for you both in private and in public. I will compassionately give to you my body and spirit in the union which alone we enjoy together.

I covenant this day to accept the role of servant leader, and to be to my children and grandchildren, should

God grant, a compassionate, encouraging, and guiding father. This day

I seal this covenant for as long as we both shall live. Isn't that good? And the wives responded with a shorter one,

My precious and honored husband, this day I renew before God my covenant with you. I covenant this day to love and respect you with all the fervency of my being.

I covenant to make our home a place of repose and comfort. I will honor you as the spiritual leader of our home.

I will devote myself to you and the offspring God may give above all others. I will graciously submit to your servant leadership, never allowing the sun to go down on my wrath.

I will not keep books on evil. I will regard my responsibilities as wife and mother as priority above all else except God.

I will seek your well -being, happiness, and success rather than my own. I will compassionately give to you my body and spirit in union which we alone enjoy together.

This day I seal this covenant for as long as we both shall live. How about making up your own, men, when you get home?

Well, so much to cover in so little time. I'm tempted to either do part four or do 90 miles an hour.

I think there's plenty in chapter 8 to talk about next week, so here's what we should do. As we look at this

Bible text, I don't see anything about Jesus Christ, the resurrection, his substitutionary atonement, sins that need to be atoned for, but I see love.

And when I see love, human love, impure human love, it drives me to look at another love, doesn't it?

And now I'm going to just read you several verses about God's love for his people that will serve as our communion introduction.

I will not give a communion sermon, but what I will do is give you some words of love that are from the

Scriptures. I will not give the Bible verses because I'd like to just wash these verses over your minds as you think that Jesus Christ loved me.

And that's what we'll celebrate today, that Jesus Christ, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit before time began, coveted with each other, agreed with each other, promised long ago, literally, that they would save a group of people and set their love on them.

In his love and in his mercy, he redeemed them. And he lifted them and carried them all the days of old.

The Lord appeared to him from far off, saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love, therefore I have drawn you with loving kindness.

The Lord your God is in your midst, a victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy. He will be quiet in his love.

He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy. Just as my

Father has loved me, I have also loved you. Abide in my love. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that you sent me and love them even as you love me.

Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man someone would dare even to die.

But God demonstrates his own love towards us, that in while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, our distress, our persecution, our famine, our nakedness, our peril, our sword?

In all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us. He predestined us in love to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself according to the kind intention of his will.

But God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved. May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.

And the grace of the Lord was more abundant with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus. See how great a love the

Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us because it did not know him.

Beloved, we are now children of God and it is not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when he appears we will be like him because we will see him just as he is.

We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us. By this the love of God was manifest in us, that God has sent his only begotten

Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we love

God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Would you bow with me in prayer please? Father, we would exalt your name this day.

We would exalt your name by your Spirit's power in our singing, our giving, our preaching and now remembering what

Jesus Christ had done for us. Father, how you loved us, how your Son loved us, how your Spirit loved us.

And how that love goes on even now. Father, thank you that we could have your affection even though we didn't deserve it and even though we couldn't merit it, even though we could not work for it.

And Father, if you are a great God who gives even marital love, we praise you this day that when the marriages are gone that we could stand before you face to face and that we would be counted blessed because of Christ when we stand in your presence and we have great joy and we have no blame.

And so Father, today would you help us to remember that you loved us before eternity passed.

In a way, your Son loved us in time by dying for us and the Spirit now keeps us alive and whether it's past tense or present tense,

Lord, we know that once you set your affections on someone, no one or nothing can stop that.

We would confess, Lord, that we are a sinful people and that we come not worthy of celebrating this great feast.

We would acknowledge that our worthiness comes based on what Jesus Christ did. We would ask that you'd help us to look away from ourselves, from what we've done, from our church attendance, from our membership, from our baptism, from our good works, that we would come today solely resting in the work of Christ Jesus, both his life and death and resurrection.

And Lord, we would come not because we're worthy but because you have called us to and because you're a faithful and just God who forgives sins when we confess them.