WWUTT 1779 I Am My Beloved’s (Song of Songs 2:8-3:5)

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At the beginning of Song of Songs, this man and this woman long for one another, but they need to be self -controlled in their thinking.

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And so do we. We need to have the mind of Christ, even when it comes to romance. When we understand the text.

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This is when we understand the text, studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program. Here once again is

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study of the Song of Songs today, still in Chapter 2.

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And the way I've been doing these readings with each lesson that we've had in the Song of Songs, I'll just read the man's voice, and then the woman's voice, and then the others if they are in there.

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Well, this is picking up with the woman in Song of Songs 2 .8, and she speaks all the way through Chapter 3,

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Verse 11. So this is a pretty long section. I'm going to begin by reading Verse 8 and just go to the end of the chapter.

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And if we get far enough, we'll pick up in Chapter 3 after that. All right. So this is the woman speaking in Song of Songs 2, beginning in Verse 8.

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The voice of my beloved. Behold he is coming, leaping on the mountains, jumping on the hills.

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My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold he is standing behind our wall.

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He gazes through the windows. He is peering through the lattice. My beloved answered and said to me,

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Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along. For behold the winter is past, the rain is over, it is gone.

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The flowers have appeared in the land, the time for pruning has arrived, and the voice of the turtle dove has been heard in our land.

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The fig tree has ripened its figs, and the vines and blossom have given forth their fragrance.

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Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along. O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the secret place of the steep pathway, let me see your appearance, let me hear your voice.

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For your voice is sweet and your appearance is lovely. Seize the foxes for us, the little foxes that are wreaking destruction on the vineyards, while our vineyards are in blossom.

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My beloved is mine and I am his, he who shepherds his flock among the lilies.

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Until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bethar.

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All right, let's come back to verse 8 here with the woman speaking. Now again, she is dreaming here.

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She is asleep. She has laid down beneath a tree, which was earlier in chapter 2.

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She has envisioned her love coming to her and even embracing her.

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And then the man speaks in verse 7 to kind of calm that desire, to keep her from thinking too longingly of physical affection.

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It's not time for that yet. So she can let that desire go too far. And he says to the maidens that would accompany her in verse 7,

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I call you to solemnly swear, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field, that you do not arouse or awaken my love until she pleases.

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Now that's specifically in the context of her dreaming. That same phrase is going to come up again in chapter 3, verse 5.

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Again while she is dreaming, this is a daydream. Chapter 3 is a night dream. It's in the context of her dreaming that he says, don't awaken her.

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But it's also in the context of her having said something about longing to touch him.

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It's not time for that yet. The desire can go too far. So don't awaken that aspect of our desire until the right time.

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Now her response, verses 8 through 17 is basically to say, why is it not the right time?

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Like let's go get married. You have the statements about the winter is past, the rain is over.

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In verse 15, our vineyards are in blossom. Now is the time. So why do we delay?

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Let's go get married and consummate our love. So she begins in verse 8, speaking in the midst of a daydream, the voice of my beloved, he just spoke, verse 7, behold, he is coming.

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Remember, she's gone to this place and laid under this tree and imagine being with him there and eating fruit, waiting for him to arrive.

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She hears his voice, verse 7, and then she speaks in the midst of her daydream. Now this is all very poetic.

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It's not literal. It's not like he's there in proximity to have spoken and she heard him speak at a distance.

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This is all kind of happening in a very idealized setting here.

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So again, in verse 8, she says, the voice of my beloved, behold, he is coming, leaping on the mountains, jumping on the hills.

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How does she envision him? She thinks of him as a bold and strong stag.

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Behold, my beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.

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He is standing behind our wall. He gazes through the windows.

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He is peering through the lattice. Now that might sound kind of creepy, right?

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He's peeking through the windows looking for her. He shouldn't be doing that. A lot of these references were seasonal.

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You may not have picked up on that. She envisions her man as being a stag. And you might think,

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OK, well, these days, if a girl likes a guy, she might think of him as a stud. So maybe a stag is the equivalent of that.

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No, not really. Although a stag is certainly a very beautiful and majestic animal.

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And that's the way she thinks of her man is being majestic and strong. But where is the stag?

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The voice of my beloved, behold, he is coming where leaping on the mountains, jumping on the hills.

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Where do the deer go in the spring? They go up on the mountains.

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Like if you live in an area where there are mountains, you probably know this. When the winter comes, when the snows are coming, they'll come down off the mountains and be down in the low areas.

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But once the snow melts, they'll go back up on the mountains. That's where he is. And keep in mind, we've got a lot of seasonal references in this particular section because she's saying our love is in season.

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So let it bloom. These references are very seasonal with regards to what she's singing about in this particular section.

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So he's leaping on the mountains. He's jumping on the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.

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He is standing behind our wall. Now, that doesn't mean he's on the other side of the fence like he's outside the fence.

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That actually means he's inside the fence. So behind the wall means that you're within the wall in the protection of the wall.

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He's very near. And she even thinks of him as being a protector, hence why he's behind the wall.

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He would be one that would look out for the predators or anybody that might come to steal and kill and destroy, looking for the thieves.

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So he's behind the wall, also indicating that he's very near. He gazes through the windows.

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He is peering through the lattice. And then verse 10, my beloved answered and said to me, arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along.

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So again, why is he peering through windows and through the lattice? And why would that be considered a good thing?

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Well, he's looking for her is is basically what she's saying. And she doesn't live alone.

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She lives with her family. So this is him coming calling. And he's not doing this in in the darkness.

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We've talked about that or I've mentioned that to you as we've been going through Song of Songs. This is not some secret forbidden love that they're sneaking off away with one another in the cover of night.

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All of this is in daylight. So he's not being sneaky and he's not doing anything creepy. He's looking for her is is essentially what she's saying there.

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And think of this also in terms of her envisioning him as a stag. If a deer comes looking for food, they look through the windows and look through the lattice.

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Hey, I smelled something. What are you cooking? And that's the way she pictures her man looking for her.

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My beloved said, arise, my darling, and come along. Verse 11. For behold, the winter is past.

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The rain is over. It is gone. You have that picture now of the of the stag majestically up on the mountains.

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The flowers have appeared in the land. The time for pruning has arrived and the voice of the turtle dove has been heard in our land.

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The fig tree has ripened its figs and all this talking about it.

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It's time now our love is in bloom and this is building up to the marriage or the wedding day, which comes up midway through chapter three.

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This is a daydream. Then she has a nightdream. So we're getting the sense of of time passing, counting the days until we're there at the wedding day.

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The rest of verse 13, the vines in blossom have given forth their fragrance.

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Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come along. We've heard about fragrance in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

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It's been spoken about already in Song of Songs. A fragrance is a reference to a good name, to a good reputation.

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In this particular case, as the woman is longing for her wedding day, it's a reference to something that is pleasing to everybody.

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It's good for the wedding day is good. Everyone is involved. Everyone participates.

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Everyone celebrates the joining together of these two into one new family. So arise, my darling, my beautiful one, let's go.

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And verse 14. Oh, my dove in the clefts of the rock in the secret place of the steep pathway.

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Let me see your appearance. Let me hear your voice for your voice is sweet and your appearance is lovely.

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He still is not right there with her. He's outside the house. That was the depiction earlier back in verse nine.

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He's inside the wall, but he's he's still outside the house. He's speaking.

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He's saying, come along. Let us go get married. She hears him, but she can't see him.

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So you have these references to clefts of the rock, secret, secret place of the steep pathway.

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Let me see your appearance. Let me hear your voice. She's daydreaming, but he's still not quite where she wants him to be.

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Verse 15 sees the foxes for us, the little foxes that are wreaking destruction on the vineyards while our vineyards are in blossom.

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In other words, let there not be anything that's going to hinder us or stop us from this day.

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Let everything be perfect, exactly as we planned on it being. Don't let there be anything that would come along that would that would stop us or force us to have to delay.

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Like something happens in the field or the sheep ran away. They went somewhere they weren't supposed to go.

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I have to go get them. So now we have to delay the wedding another day. Or there is some sort of controversy or animosity that has come up.

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And perhaps this man is a is a trusted person in the village. And so he would sit at the gate and render judgment.

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Don't let there be anything happening that would keep us from what we have longed for so much and have kept ourselves for.

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We are we're pure. We're ready for this. We're in season. Our love is in bloom.

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So verse 16, my beloved is mine and I am his. He who shepherds his flock among the lilies until the day breathes and the shadows flee.

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Turn my beloved and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of better.

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You have this reference to a stag kind of bookends this daydream. She envisions him as a stag in verse eight and in verse 17 comes back to that again.

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Now, this reference in verse 16, my beloved is mine and I am his. He who shepherds his flock among the lilies.

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What did we hear about the lilies earlier? The lily is a common flower. And and the woman had referenced herself this way.

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Song of songs to one. I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valleys, as though to say she is common and undesirable.

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She hasn't prettied herself up yet in the context of that statement. And he responds in verse two by saying like a lily among thorns.

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So is my darling among the daughters. So this reference she makes in verse 16 is to say that he shepherds his flocks among the maidens.

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There are other girls there, but she's not concerned because my beloved is mine and I am his.

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He who shepherds his flock among the lilies. But it's time. It's time for us now. So until the day breathes and the shadows flee, turn my beloved and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bethar, which was a place where very, very many fragrant spices were grown.

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So she's saying until the day breathes and the shadows flee, until this season of darkness that we're in is over, when our love cannot be together in the day of our wedding dawns.

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And where do we go next? We go to night where she's dreaming because she's still not yet with her man anticipating their wedding day until that day comes and the shadows flee those things that keep us from one another.

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Turn my beloved and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of Bethar.

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Again, a place where spices are grown, a very fragrant place, in fact. So it's as though she's telling him, keep your good reputation and your good name until that day that we can be together.

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Don't be won over by those maidens that you shepherd your sheep among.

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Keep yourself pure. We'll be together soon. Now let's get into chapter three. Here's her nightdream.

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And I'm going to go through verse five because then we pick up on the wedding day at verse six, which is still the woman talking, but we're changing setting there.

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So we'll pick up on that part next week. Let's go chapter three, verses one through five. I'll read through that and then we'll consider our commentary here.

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Verse one, on my bed, night after night, I sought him who my soul loves.

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I sought him, but did not find him. I must arise now and go about the city in the streets and in the squares.

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I must seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but did not find him.

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The watchmen who go about the city found me. And I said, have you seen him who my soul loves?

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Scarcely had I passed them by. When I found him who my soul loves, I seized him and I would not let him go until I had brought him to my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me.

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And then his voice comes in in verse five and I'll wait there. I'll wait a moment anyway to get to that part.

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So back to verse one. This is her nightdream. Now we've heard the daydream. She says on my bed, night after night,

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I sought him. Now again, we're talking about a scenario that's kind of playing out.

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Things are very poetic. It's not like literally these things are transpiring. So we go from a daydream to a nightdream and it's as if the woman is beginning to despair a little bit because it's been so long.

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Why are we not wed yet? Why do I have to continue to wait? So she dreams about and longs for her love who, by the way, never actually meets up with her.

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They talked about that in chapters one and two, and he told her to go to the place where she knows he would be, but we never actually witnessed them meeting up except in her daydream where he comes close, but they're never actually together.

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So so the longing for one another, the looking for one another, but never actually really finding each other.

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Even if literally they did OK, like like literally they she went to that place where she knew he would come with his flocks and he came there and they enjoyed the afternoon talking and whatever.

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This poetry is still depicting for her that she she didn't really get what she wanted.

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She wants to be with her love, but they haven't gotten to that part yet because the wedding day has not yet come.

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So her heart is just in grief over the fact that they're not married yet.

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The two have not yet become one flesh. She wants to be and they're not yet there. So now there's this darkness.

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Now it's a night dream where she's looking for her love. Now he's not even near in the daydream.

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He was near. He's peering through the window looking for her and speaking to her and say, come on, let's go.

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But now it's at night and she feels even farther from him than she was before. I sought him, but I did not find him.

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Verse one, I must arise now and go about the city in the streets and in the squares.

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I must seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him, but I did not find him. Where was he before?

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Where was he in chapter two? He was up on the mountains. Where is he now in chapter three?

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He's in the streets somewhere. Why have we changed setting? Where is it that the father warned the son not to go in Proverbs chapter six and seven?

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Do you remember that? He warned the son not to go to the harlot's house, which was in the city, which was down that shady street over there.

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She beckons for you. Don't listen to her call. Don't go that way. It is the way of death for you to go that way.

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She's made this statement. The woman has made this statement at the end of chapter two that he shepherds his flock among the lilies.

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She says to him, keep yourself pure until our day. But that day hasn't come and she's beginning to worry that maybe his heart and his affection has gone toward someone else.

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And so she goes to the city looking for him. Doesn't necessarily mean she's afraid that he's gone to a harlot.

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But this is definitely a setting that is less pure, you could say, than out in the countryside or out on the mountaintops.

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So I must seek him whom my soul loves. I sought him but did not find him, which is good news for her.

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I went down those dark streets. I didn't find him there. That's good that she didn't find him there.

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The watchman who go about the city found me and I said, have you seen him whom my soul loves?

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Scarcely had I passed them by when I found him whom my soul loves, I seized him and would not let him go until I had brought him to my mother's house and into the chamber of her who conceived me.

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That's a very intimate place. That's a private place. That's a place only that the women were supposed to be.

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Men were not supposed to be in there. Remember earlier that she had dreamt about or daydreamed about him touching her, pulling her close and embracing her.

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That was in chapter two, verse six. And he immediately responded in verse seven by saying, I call to you,

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O daughters of Jerusalem, don't awaken her until the time is right, until she pleases.

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Same exact response in verse five. So now she embraces the man and she thinks in order to have him and to keep him,

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I need to take him to my intimate place so I can be sure he's not going to run off with some other girl. And what does he say?

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Verse five, I call you to solemnly swear, O daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or by the hinds of the field.

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Now remember that references to the fact that when you're hunting, you don't go running out into the field because then all the gazelles or the hinds run away.

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So being gentle, doing this gently, not awakening love until the proper time, but being careful that you do not arouse or awaken my love referring to the woman until she pleases.

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And this is again, it's not time for her to have these desires yet.

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The wedding day has not come. That's what's next. That's what we get to in the next part of chapter three, the man arriving for his wedding day.

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Now, then let's do some application as we finish up the devotional today. Let's go straight to the gospel connection.

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Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. He rose again from the dead. He purchased us by his blood.

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If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you belong to him. Therefore, you may understand the words of the woman that are said here in Song of Songs 216.

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My beloved is mine and I am his. We belong to Christ.

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And so everywhere else we find application from this is in light of the fact that we belong to Christ.

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So may our thoughts be in subjection to him. We have the mind of Christ. Let me tie this into those who are not married, since we're talking about a man and a woman here are not yet married to those who are single or even thinking about getting married.

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Maybe you are engaged. This applies to you in your thoughts. You must be self -controlled.

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That's among the fruit of the spirit. In Galatians chapter five, self -control is the last one mentioned.

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So it doesn't get a lot of attention. Love is the first one. And we love love.

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So we're always talking about love being fruit of the spirit and not self -control. Even when it comes to your thinking, you must be in subjection to Christ.

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Colossians three, five, therefore, consider the members of your earthly body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire and greed, which is idolatry.

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All of those things start in the mind before they play out in the body. Verse six, on account of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience.

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It is wrong and it is sinful even to desire sin. Be subject to Christ even in your thinking.

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Now apply that to marriage. It's the same for you who are married. Do not desire a spouse outside of your own.

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Don't think that my marriage would be happier if I was with this person or even looking at another couple that looks like they're happier than you are.

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So you begin to covet their marriage and resent your spouse. You're probably the problem in your marriage as God has shown grace to us.

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We sin against God more than anyone has ever sinned against you. And yet God has been gracious to us.

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So you must practice that grace in your marriage. And let your thoughts be in subjection to Christ, not longing for something more ideal than what you think you have right now.

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This is the marriage that God has given to you. So honor God in the way that you love your spouse.

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Now let's apply this to just about anything. We all must be self -controlled in our thinking about anything, not going after the passions of our flesh or the temptations of this world.

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So let me finish with Ephesians 5 verses 15 to 21 and maybe make this a prayer for yourself as you find application for the way that you live and go about your day in honor of the

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Lord. Okay. Ephesians 5 .15. Therefore, look carefully how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming the time because the days are evil.

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On account of this, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is and do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the

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Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our

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Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the father and being subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

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And all God's people said, amen. This has been when we understand the text of Pastor Gabriel Hughes.

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For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt

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.com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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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.