Song of Solomon 5 - Verse by Verse Bible Study

Song of Solomon 5 - Verse by Verse Bible Study

August 28, 2013

Now in Song of Solomon, Chapter 5, the Bible reads in Verse 1, "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." Now the Book of Song of Solomon we are continuing on where we left off in Chapter 4 that talk about going into the garden, and that was just a term that was being used for a special time between the husband and wife hat they were going to spend alone together, being intimate with one another. Now the Book of Song of Solomon is primarily a book that is dealing with marriage, it's dealing with the relationship between husband and wife, and so whenever we read the Bible I think it's wise to always focus in on the primary interpretation first.

I mean, there are a lot of symbolic things, and secondary applications for pretty any book of the Bible you look at, but we should always make sure that we don’t miss just the obvious surface meaning. Sometimes preachers are so busy digging down deep and trying to find all symbolism and all the hidden meanings, that it's almost like they just pass over what's right there on the surface. What the Bible is actually saying. And so, we don’t want to pass over that. You hear a lot of preaching on Song of Solomon that just passes over the marital application, the relationship between husband and wife, and just go straight for the symbolism.

That’s not what I'm going to do tonight. Now there is some symbolism in this passage, just as there is in all parts of the Bible, but the first thing I want to take is the literal application here, and when we see the husband speaking to his wife, he says, my sister, my spouse. The word spouse means your wife, and his sister, simply because they are brother and sister in Christ, because they are both saved, God is their Father.

He says, "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice." Now, what is he referring to there, with myrrh and spice, well these are things that smell good. That's what he's talking about. And he says after that, "I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved."

Now these are things that taste good, wine honey, milk, and then things that smell good, like myrrh, spice, if you jump down to the end of the chapter, if you go down to Verse 13, it says, "His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers; his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh." If you look at the last verse, Verse 16, it says, "His mouth is most sweet; yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem."

So there's a lot of talk in this passage about a lot of tastes and smells and about the fact that his mouth is very sweet, and that he has eaten honey and milk. When I look at this the first thing that I think of is the importance, in your marriage, of keeping your breath fresh. Again, this might sound like a joke, but I am 100 percent right now, I'm dead serious. I mean, people sometimes in their marriage they don’t take this seriously that they want to make themselves attractive to their spouse.

Think about it, if we are going to have a close relationship with our wife. If we are going to do all the kissing that it talks about in other chapters in the Book of Song of Solomon, shouldn’t we make sure to take care of ourselves and take care of basic hygiene. There are a lot of men today, and we can preach on the women about this, we are not going to, we are talking about the men here. There are a lot of men, that they don’t take a shower often, they are not using deodorant, they are not brushing their teeth. This Is not going to help your relationship with your wife.

Here we see that this guy cares about his wife enough, and cares about his marriage enough, and wants to spend time with his wife, so he tells her: honey, I've drunk my milk and honey and my wine. I've got the myrrh and spice here. I guess that’s like Old Spice, or whatever. Basically, he's taking care of himself, you know, we as men, should be clean, and the Bible says, anyway that sermon says the Lord should be clean, but especially in order to be respectful to our wife, we should not … clean ourselves up when we go wedding, or clean ourselves up when we go be around other people, but when we are at home we are just a slob.

When we are home we are not brushing our teeth, we are not keeping breath fresh, we are not taking a shower, we are not using … says, ah, it's just my wife, it's just her. Well, that’s explains your marriage. You need to take this seriously. So, that’s just the first thing right on the surface that I see in this passage, that’s just, get that mouth, and make it sweet-smelling mouth, guys. But not only that, but we could then take a symbolic interpretation here, because obviously a lot of the things in Song of Solomon are symbolic of Christ of the church. Because the Bible says, "Husbands love your wives and Christ love the church and gave himself forth."

And if we think about this in regard to the Lord Jesus Christ, go Psalm 19, because remember he's describing his mouth as having eaten honey and milk and wine, and it talks about his mouth being sweet. Look at what the Bible says about the word of God, in Psalm 19, it says in Verse 7. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul."

We are talking about how perfect God's word is, "The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple." We can be sure that Gods word is true, and it will make those that are unintelligent wise.

It says in Verse 8, "The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether." Look verse 10, "More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb."

So the Bible actually describes God's word as being sweet to the taste, and so if we think about the husband being referred to as being sweet, and obviously when we think of the mouth, we can also think of words that are being spoken, and the word that comes out of the Lord Jesus Christ mouth, the Bible says he has as sword coming out of his mouth, in Revelation 19. And the Bible says that his word is sweeter also than honey, and the honeycomb.

God's word is sweet, God's word is clean. The Bible says, "Oh, taste and see that Lord is good." And so that’s a good, secondary application. God's word is something that can be refreshing to you, and that it does taste good.

Now, look down if you would at Verse 2, in Song of Solomon 5, it says, "I sleep, buy my heart waketh." What is meant by that in Verse 2, "I sleep but my heart waketh." What she's talking about is basically having a dream. Her body is asleep but her mind is active, her heart is awake there. So she says, "I sleep but my heart waketh, it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh, saying open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled, for my head is filled with dew and my locks with drops of the night."

So, basically, she's lying there and having a dream in her bed that her husband is outside knocking on the door, it's raining on him, and he's standing out in the rain and he's saying, open up, let me in, my hair is getting wet here.

Then it says in Verse 3, "I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" So he's standing at the door knocking and he's saying, look I've already taken my shoes off, I'm taken coat off, I'm out in the rain, I'm trying to get in, let me in, this is the dream that she's having.

It says, "My beloved putting his hand by the hole of the door and my bowels were moved for him." So again, she has a intense desire unto her husband, he's right outside that door. She wants to be with him, she gets up, it says, in Verse 5, "I rose to open to my beloved, and my dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet-smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved, but my beloved had withdrawn himself and was gone. My soul failed when he spake. I sought him I could not find him. I called him but he gave me no answer."

So in this dream that she has, she's laying on the bed, the husband is at the door, he's knocking at the door, he's begging to be let in. Finally she gets up, she lets him in, and there's nobody there. He's not there, she's looking for him, he's not there. Again, if we wanted to take a symbolic meaning here, we could about what Jesus Christ said in Revelation Chapter 3, to the church at Laodicea.

Now look! He was speaking to the saved in Revelation Chapter 3. A lot of people mistakenly use that verse as a salvation verse, when it says, "Behold I stand at the door and know. If any man hear my voice, and open the door I will come in to him," not into him, but in to him, two separate words, "And will sup, and he with me."

Supper, dinner, that’s fellowship. He saying I'm going to sit down and have a meal with you, we are going to commune one with another.

And so Revelation Chapter 3, he's talking to the church at Laodicea, and he says, "I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see."

So, look, he's tell them, you are lukewarm, you think you have every … you think you are rich, you think you can see, but he says, you are lukewarm, you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. He says, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten."

What does rebuke mean, to tell you that you are wrong. Chasten means what? To discipline you or to give you spanking. He says, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten, be zealous therefore and repent." What is being zealous? It means you are fired up, it means that you are passionate, it means that you doing … it's the opposite of being lukewarm.

When you are lukewarm you are half in and half out, when you are zealous, man, you are all the way in. And Jesus says, "Look, I am outside the door of your church knocking." He says to the church of the Laodiceans, "I stand at the door and knock, if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." He's saying: Look! I want to have fellowship with you but you are too lukewarm, I can't fellowship with you.

You could be saved and be lukewarm, because the only think you have to do to be saved, is just believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, "What must I do to be saved, and they said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." But look! If you are lukewarm, you don’t have a close fellowship with God, because He says, "I want to spew you out of my mouth." When we are lukewarm or when we are not zealous about the things of God, when we are apathetic about the things of God, when we don't care about the things of God. He says: I can't sup with you. I'm knocking and you need to let me in.

Now, it's interesting because he's talking to the individual, because first he dresses the whole church saying like; you guys are all a bunch of lukewarm Christians, it makes me sick. But then he says, if any man hear my voice, that’s the individual, and open the door I will come in to him, and will sup with him.

That’s encouraging for somebody who is in a dead church. Somebody who is in a lukewarm church, someone who is in a dead church, they still, individually can get fired up about the things of God. They can still be a soul winner, they can still get zealous, and they can have a close fellowship with God.

I do not believe in this movement today, where people just don’t go to church anywhere, and they just say, well, I can't find to go to church, so I'm not going to church.

I'd rather go to the church of the Laodiceans, and I'll be fired up if they are not. I'd rather get in the church of Philadelphia, the Church of Smyrna. I'd rather be in a fired-up church, obviously you should go to the best possible church you can find, because look, these are the last days, we need church more than ever, and we need to be in a fired-up church. But let me say this, it will be better off to be like the ones at Sardis. Who, they were worthy, even though the rest of the church had a name that they lived and were dead.

Jesus Christ wants to have fellowship with us, but he wants us to be zealous, he will have fellowship with us when we are zealous. The Bible said, if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another.

There is no darkness in him at all, the Bible says, at 1 John 1. So we need to get all the way in, we need to be fired up, if we want to have a close walk and fellowship with God. Now here the spouse, she is already married to him but she's not in fellowship with him, he's gone for whatever reason. And she's having a dream, he's standing at the door knocking. She doesn’t come and let him in right away, and then it's like, okay, I'm ready for you now, and he's gone. That's like us sometimes, basically we just think that we can just make a convenient time for Jesus later.

We do it on our timetable, and we say, right now I'm just at a time in my life where I just have other things going on, and maybe later on, I'm going to get excited about church, and later on I'll get faithful to church, I'll start coming to church, I'll read Bible, I'll do and so on.

But do you know what, just not right now. Right now I'm just too busy, and this is a good example of the fact that opportunities that are here today are not always going to be here tomorrow, and Jesus is standing at the door right now. He wants to have fellowship with you right now, he's not just going to stand there and knock forever.

I mean, he says I stand at the door and knock, but do you know what, he wants you to open the door right now. So, we need to make sure that we don't put Jesus off, and put him in the backburner, and then we think; oh, yeah, I'll serve God later, but do you know what, in the meantime before you are serving God, when you are living a life of sin, or living a life that’s half in half out, living a life that excludes church. Do you know what, what kind of damage are you doing to your life in the meantime.

And you think you can just, oh, just anytime I want to I can open that door, so I'm just going keep Him waiting because I'm into sports right. I'm too into sin right now. I'm just too into my job right now. I just need to make some money, I just need to get ahead, and you just think he's just always … whenever I want to I can just open that door and I'm going to serve God and everything is going to be great.

Do you know what, you don’t lose your salvation, you could never lose your salvation, they are still married in the story here. it's not like there's divorce papers waiting at the door when she opens it. She finally goes to the door, and there's a lawyer there with the divorce papers, the sheriff serving her, that’s not what it is, but what we do see thought is a lack of fellowship, she's trying to find him, she's trying to, now, okay God, I'm ready to serve you, I'm ready to have fellowship, and you’ve already done a lot of irreparable damage, and that you have to suffer for.

Let's reading this dream. Now, I don’t know, I struggle with this passage, like where the dream ends, and where reality begins, or if it's all a dream. Because I was wondering if maybe she just dreamed he is at door, so then she goes there and he's not there, because he never really was there, because it was just dream. I don’t know if this whole thing is a dream, but she's going to end up getting beaten by the police.

I don’t know if that’s part of the dream. I don’t know if that’s part of the dream, or if that really happens, but let's keep reading. She opens the door and her beloved is gone. Her husband is gone, and it says, she sought him, that means she looked for him, she searched for him, "But I could not find him. I called him but he gave me no answer."

" The watchmen that went about the city found…" These are the police, okay. "The watchmen that went about the city found me, they smote me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took away my veil from me."

Now look, some things just never change. There is nothing new, there's nothing under the sun. This woman is getting beaten by the police for no reason. It's like, what are you doing out at this time, or whatever. So they beat her and said, take that veil off, we need to see who you are, we need to identify you.

I don’t know if the … I think if you go back to the Hebrew and said that she's tasered, but I don’t know. No. I'm just kidding. Anyway that’s part of what the new living translation changes it to, it's about being beaten and tasered, both.

Anyway, so she gets beaten by the police or whatever, they take away her veil, I hope that was just a dream. I hope that didn’t … I've had that dream a few times, so maybe that was just a dream.

Anyway, it says that, "The keepers of the walls took away my veil from me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if ye find my beloved, that ye tell him, that I am sick of love." Meaning not that she's sick of it, but that she's love sick. She's so in love that it's actually making her sick.

Now look what it says in Verse 9, it says, "What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? What is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?" They are saying, what is so great about this guy, your husband, you are praising your spouse, you are praising your beloved, you are telling us how great, what so great about him, they are asking. Tell us why he's any better than any other guy that’s out there?

Again, if we were to take a symbolic view on this, it's kind of like, well what makes you think that your religion is right, do you know what I mean, and everything else is wrong? Why do you think that the Bible is right, and that the Koran is wrong, or that the Book of Mormon is wrong, or that the Tao te Ching is wrong, or whatever else.

To those of us that are saved it's a ridiculous question because we know that God's word is so much greater than all of these other so-called holy scriptures. They can't even hold a candle to it, and it's funny, because every once in a while, somebody will quote to you something from the Book of Mormon maybe, or something from the Koran, and you are always just … you just have to shake your head it like: Are you serious?

It's pretty easy to tell. You look at the Apocrypha a little bit, you'll see a real big difference. God's word cannot be duplicated, and plenty of people have tried to duplicate it, I mean, that’s what Joseph Smith was doing with the Book Mormon, I mean he's trying to duplicate scripture, he thinks he can write his own scripture, it's so obviously a fraud, it's so clearly not God's words.

The same things with these Apocryphal books, same things with Book of Enoch, and all this, the Gospel According to Thomas, and the Koran. You look at it, it's easy. You say, well, how do you know what's real, you just put them side-by-side, and it's pretty easy to tell the diamond from the cubic zirconia, because one is made by man and one is made by God, and you can tell the difference.

I always tell people like this, the cell phone towers that are made to look like a palm tree, you don’t have to be arborist to be able to tell the difference between a real palm tree and a cell phone that’s made to look a palm tree, because what God made is much different than man made. Man tries to duplicate God's creation and basically, these phony scriptures are a cell phone looking like a palm tree. We laugh at it, we say it's ridiculous, it's not even close, but how these scriptures are.

It's funny I was giving the gospel to some Muslim teenagers today, because we were out soul winning in what I call Little Africa, it's these apartment complexes where everybody is directly from Africa. So we were giving the gospel to some Sudanese, they are from Sudan, so they were Muslims, and I gave the whole planned salvation to these Muslim teenagers, and basically I told them, I said, here is what the Bible says, that Jesus is the Son of God, you’ve got to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.

You can't just believe Jesus is a prophet like Mohammed teaches, or believe that Jesus is just a messenger. No. The Bible says you must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. I said, do you believe is the Lord? And they said, no. I said, do you believe he died and was buried and rose again? They said no, they don’t.

I said, do you know what, the Bible teaches that you must believe on the Son of God. And I said, the Koran says that Allah has no son. I said, can both the Bible and Koran both be true? And they said, no; because one of them says, that Jesus is the Son of God, one of them says there's no such thing as the Son of God. So therefore, they cannot both be true, so I said … he's, like, how do you know that the Bible is right and that the Koran is not right.

It's kind of like this, why is your beloved better than … Why is the Bible better than the Koran? I said, okay, let me explain to you why the Bible is better than the Koran. I said, you, right now believe that to be saved, to go to heaven, that you have to live a good life, you have to obey the Koran, you have to do these … abstain from sin and do the right things, and do the five pillars of Islam, praying and fasting, and going to Mecca, if you can, or whatever. But anyway, I thought water it down, you have to go and bow down to that giant black game cube or whatever it is. You know the giant black cube that they bow down to.

Here is thing. I said look, I said you sin every day. I said you are a sinner, I said, I don’t even think you are good enough to go to heaven according to Islam. I don't even think Islam is going to get you there. You are not even that into Islam, I said you don’t even follow Islam. You just look at these teenager they didn’t look like they were just devout, they didn’t look like they carry a prayer rug everywhere they God. Do you know what I mean? They are just young teenagers playing basketball, and I said, you guys are … and they are like, well, we are a little bit, we kind of follow Islam.

I'm like, you don't follow Islam. Do you know what I mean? So then I said, well look, you have all these sins, right? I said, well, I'm a sinner too, I've got … I sin too, but the difference is that Jesus Christ died on the cross for all my sins, and in him we have redemption through his blood the forgiveness of sins. So I said, I just believe to be saved I just have to believe on Jesus Christ, and all my sins are forgiven, I said your religion teaches you just good, follow the rules, follow the commandments, and I said, you’ve already failed, there is none that doeth good, save one and that’s God. The Bible as it is written there's none righteous no, not one, for all of sin to come through the glory of God.

Then he said, well, no, no, no. He's like, this is how it is, in Islam it's our good is going to be outweighed by our bad, like if we get to heaven, it's going to be like, okay, I'm bad, but then the good makes up for it. I said, okay, try that, try stealing a car, get arrested for stealing a car, and then just go to the courtroom with a list of all the good things you’ve done. And I don't care how long that list is. I don’t care if that list is as long as a receipt from whatever grocery store, that’s five long.

I don’t care how long that list is, it's not going to matter at all, they are not even going to admit it as evidence, the prosecutor is going to say; objection, Your Honor, this is not relevant. You’ve stolen a car, it doesn’t matter how much you gave to charity, it doesn’t matter all the good things you’ve done, I said, good things cannot outweigh bad, but I said, if you were in court for having stolen this car, and maybe you would say, that you could either pay a fine of $100,000 or go to jail for five years, I said, you don’t have $100,000 you are going to jail, but I said, someone could step in and pay that fine for you.

Some benefactor could produce that 100,000 and pay that bill, and get you off the hook and free you, I said, that’s what Jesus Christ did. I said, Jesus Christ is paying for your sins by the fact that he died on the cross for you, and if you believe on him, it's paid. But I said what you are doing it's basically you are telling Jesus, no Jesus, I've got this. I've got this, I'm going to do this on my own. I said, you are going to jail.

And I said, are you really confident right now, I said to these Muslim teenagers, I said are you confident right now to stand before God? Do you really think all the good you’ve done is going to outweigh all the bad you’ve done. Are you really confident right now to stand and look at God in the face with your life right now, and you think he's going to let you into heaven.

They said, they didn’t like that. I said, I want you to think about this, I said, do you know what, this is your life, this is your eternity. Just because you are born Muslim, just because you are born Hindu or Christian or Buddhist, you need to think for yourself, you need to figure this out, this is heaven and hell. They didn’t get saved today, but hopefully, a seed was planted.

Hopefully that will get them thinking about the fact that their religion offers no real salvation. So, it's pretty easy to tell when you put God's word and when you put the Gospel side by side with the so-called gospel of Islam, it just doesn’t add up.

You put it next to the gospel of Mormonism, the King James Bible, is so dramatically better than the Book of Mormon, it's not even able to be compared. It's not even close. So that’s what I think of when I see the scripture where they say, well what's your beloved more than another beloved? I go, you know what, what's the Bible more than all these other holy books? Asked some long-haired hippie wearing a tie-dyed shirt at the university.

What about all these other holy books? Yeah, here is the difference, because this is in every nation in the world, I'm sorry every nation in the world is not filled with Muslims, every nation in the world is not filled with Hindus, I mean if you run into Hindus, you pretty much know what country they are from, right, what country are they from.

RESPONSE: India.

India. Okay, you run into people that are Buddhist, they are usually Asian, or they are just like these trendy rockers that are just like Buddhist, dude, you know, but they are not really Buddhist. They probably don't, they don't know Kung Fu or anything, so they are not really Buddhist. Anyway, you run into people that practice Judaism, 99 percent of the time, they are basically from Israel or that descendancy, or Eastern Europe, or whatever. But the bottom line is, the Bible, is in every dollar tree, every 99-cent store, every country in the world, it's everywhere, every single person almost has at least heard John 3:16, or at least heard something, I mean, on the planet.

Because God's word has gone forth onto the ends of the earth, and people have heard the name of Jesus, he is the most famous person that has ever lived. He is the most well-known individual that has ever existed in the world. And some people would just he didn’t exist. He is the most famous person ever. There is more written about him, there's more said about him, there is more said about him, there is more people following him than anybody else.

So it's pretty easy to tell why our beloved is better than their beloved, and I like what I says in the Old Testament, their rock is not as our rock. Their God is not like our God. All religions are not equal my friend. There is the God of the Bible, and then there's everything else which is just a cheap imitation.

The Bible says, in Verse 9," What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us? My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven."

Now look! Obviously everybody looks different. Not everybody is white, not everybody has black hair, not everybody, I mean there's people with blond hair, those people are red and yellow, black and white. So this isn't saying, you know, in order to be the best looking, according to the Bible, you are going to be white, you are going black hair. There are people with blond hair, people red, yellow, black and white. So this isn't saying in order to be the best-looking.

According to the Bible, you are going to be white, you are going to have black hair, you are going to have -- no, that’s not the point. This is just her describing her husband, physically. She finds him to be the most handsome man ever, so she's describing him. It's okay, if you don’t fit this bill. It's okay if you look differently than this. I don’t have black hair like a raven. I don't really want black hair like a raven. Everybody looks different that’s not the point, so don’t get too hung-up on that, but she's just talking about his looks, she's just talking about how handsome he is.

She says, "His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh."

Now look! Is that what your wife says about your mouth, back to that first point of the sermon. It's your mouth like lilies and sweet-smelling myrrh, it had better be. But anyway it says in Verse 14, "His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires."

Okay. Sapphire is the second-hardest stone, because diamonds, I'm not a jeweler or anything, so if I'm getting this wrong forgive me, but that’s what the salesman told me one time. Anyway diamonds are the number one hardest stone, I guess, from my understanding, and then the sapphire is number two, as far as hard … So basically we are talking about a strong stomach, if it's being compared onto sapphires.

Then is says in Verse … because I don't think she's saying it's blue. Do you know what I mean? She's probably referring to the hardness there, the solidness of his stomach. I lost my place what verse am I in? Help me out.

"His belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires." Remember how white this guy is, so that’s the bright ivory. Then in Verse 15 it says, "His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold, his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet," and we'll get to that last part.

So she's describing him, she's describing his hands, and she's describing his belly, and she's describing his legs, and basically … you know what we get from this is that this guy is a strong guy, he's got legs like pillars of marble. One thing I would point out about this is that, again, that’s what we started out the sermon with, you don't want to just let yourself go, just because you are married. People that are single, the really take care of themselves. When you are single you shave twice a day, when you are married you don’t shave at all. At least if you are like me." But anyway, you let yourself go sometimes, the tendency for both male and female it's just to say, well, you know what we've already made a vow, till death do us part here, why would I spend any time taking care of myself or making myself look good for my spouse. But do you know what honestly you should take the time to take care of yourself.

Look! I'm not saying that you should sit there and just worry about your appearance and spend all this ton of time. There are people who spend way too much time on their appearance. There are ladies who literally spend hours in the morning getting ready. And do you know what that would be time probably better spend reading your Bible and praying, so that you could have internal beauty, so that you could be right with God.

So just spending an inordinate amount of time on your appearance is not what I'm talking about. I'm not saying that you need to spend an inordinate amount of time, exercising or taking care of yourself, or getting your hair just coiffed, just so, but at the same time you shouldn’t just totally let yourself go either. Because you just don’t want to be a total slob. When your wife married she didn’t want you to just become this huge slob, that’s not what she wanted when she married you.

She didn’t want you to just bigger, and bigger and bigger, and the showers to get more and more infrequent. And the dental hygiene to just keep getting worse and worse, and you just get uglier and slobbier and slovenly, and you dress like a slop, and you are dirty and you wear. Look, I like to try to … Honestly, I like to dress around my house, or at least, I like to look presentable around my house. Because I don't have this attitude of when I go to church how I look is important, and when I get together with friends how I look is important. I have a philosophy that says, when I'm at home with my wife and children how I look is just as important.

Because the most important people to me in my life are my wife and children, so I want to look my best around them. So I don’t just look like a complete slob around them, completely let myself go and then, well, I'll fix myself up for somebody else. I don’t do a lot of fixing up of myself. I don't comb my hair, I don’t shave except once a week, I'll trim around the edges a little bit. I'm saying that I spend a bunch of, but at least I shower, I brush my teeth, I put on nice, clean clothes, and I try to look my best. I just try to stay healthy, I'm not going to become a glutton, and I'm not going to become sedentary, I just want to be healthy, and I want to be the best possible husband that I can be.

And do you know what, the same thing goes the other way for wives, obviously should take care of themselves, take care of their body, take care of their health, take care of their appearance. That's what I get from this passage, she's praising him. By the way, I think this verse just basically disproves skinny jeans. This thing of like, "His legs are like pillars of marble." Okay. What is up with these jeans where you are just trying to make your legs look as skinny as they can. You look like a queer when you wear this really skinny jeans, and especially when they are sagging and showing your underwear. That's disgusting, my children will get a swift kick in the pants if they ever even thought of dressing that way.

RESPONSE: Amen.

And some of these guys, it's like they can't even pull their pants up. Literally, you say, "Pull your pants up." They can't, because the jeans are designed to where they pull them up and this part right here, the in-seam, is that what's the called? The in-seam hits something, and it's like they don’t get all the way to the waist, and they are pulling and pulling, it's not even possible. Don’t you dare buy pants like that and call yourself a real man. Get a real pair of pants, that go all the waist, and they make your legs look like pillars of marble, not make your legs look like of strings of spaghetti. You need to get some manly pants, and if you are confused about what men dress like, you need to limit yourself to Carhartts and Dickies, it should be the only two brad you even touch. Do you know what I mean?

If you know how to dress as a man, you can wear whatever brand you want, but if you are confused, that that this is an area you struggle in, limit yourself to those two brands for a while, because I don’t think they make skinny jeans. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. You need to get out of Urban Outfitter, or get out of Ambercrombie & Fitch, pass by The Gap, and you need to just get dialed in with some work clothes. Look like a man, a man work, a man wear clothes that are not tight and revealing of their backside. Cover your backside for crying out loud.

Anyway let's get off that point. I'm driving that -- you say, well preach the Bible, pillars of marble, pillars of marble, and all God's people said, amen.

RESPONSE: Amen.

No skinny jeans in the Book of Song of Solomon. But it says in Verse 16, "His mouth is most sweet, yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem."

And I want to finish the sermon tonight just by talking about that word friend, because according to the Bible here, our wife should be our friend. Your husband should be your friend, right. Not just a business relationship, not just a roommate, and do you know what, a husband and wife should be friends, let's look at some scriptures in the Bible on friendship, to understand what God means here when he talks about a husband and wife being friends.

Go to Proverbs, I'm going to show you some scriptures from Proverbs, I'm going to show you some scriptures from Proverbs, and then we are going to go to the Book of John, and I'm going to show you why marriage is supposed to be a friendship, and why your husband should be your friend, your wife should be your friend.

And by the way, when you get married you don’t really need as many outside friends, because do you know what, I like to spend time with my wife more than anybody else.

RESPONSE: Amen.

And it's great to have outside friends, but do you know what, something is wrong when you are just constantly spending time with everybody else, and you have these real close friends, and then you are not that close with your wife, or you are not that close with your husband, that’s not good. I think that your spouse should be your best friend, that should be your main friend, that you spend the most … that should be your preferred companion, in my opinion.

Look at Proverbs 17, Verse 17, here is a great scripture on friendship, and this could be applied, I think all of these could be applied to husband and wife. It says in Proverbs 17:17, "A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."

So, what is a friend? It's somebody who is there for you in times of adversity, that’s who you go to when things go bad, when you are having problems, when you are going thru adversity, you go to your friend for support. You go to your friend for encouragement when things are going badly, well, think about this, and also says a friend loveth at all times. That is in sickness as in health and poverty as in wealth, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. Because it's the bad times when we need to show an extra love to our spouse, not back off from our spouse.

You see, you want to be the type of person for your spouse that they can go to you when things are going bad, and they can go to you and you are going to encourage them, not let them feel worse. I mean, you want to be the type of husband, where, when you wife has a problem and she comes to you with that problem you are not going to make her feel worse about it, but that you are going to be there for her in a time of adversity.

Let's say, she makes a mistake and does something, you idiot. That’s not how you want to … you want to be there and say, hey, it's all right, we are going to fix this. Men need to be the pillar of strength in the home, because men need to be there to provide stability, because women are more emotional than men, and that’s not a criticism of women, it's just a fact, women are more emotional, they tend to react a little bit more to circumstances than men, men tend to be able to stay a little more even-keeled.

So, therefore, as a man you need to be there when your wife is going through adversity, maybe she's having a really bad day, or she's really stressed out about something, or something went wrong, or she made a mistake, or things are going bad, you need to be there to basically talk to here, and encourage her, talk her down sometimes. You’ve got to talk her down, and say, hey, everything is fine, and set her mind at ease. Be someone there that’s providing stability.

Not someone who just makes it worse, oh, great, what are we going to do? But rather trying to, and the same thing, husbands, husbands sometimes have adversity in their lives, let's say, there's a -- let's say your husband loses his job, that’s bad, that’s horrible, and he comes home, and obviously, any man who lose his job maybe gets laid off, maybe gets fired, maybe it's just, whatever, the work dries up, there's no more work, whatever. He comes home and says, I lost my job today.

What are you going to say? Ah, what are we going to do? He's already upset about losing his job, are you going to just make it worse? Oh, you idiot, why can't you hold down a job, you loser. Or are you going to say: that’s all right honey, you are going to find a job, it's going to be great. I know you are a hard worker, let's get your résumé together, let's help you find a new job, we are going to get through this, I can cut back some of my spending, we'll figure this out.

I'm just saying … and I'm just throwing out some random examples. But look, you want to be somebody as a husband or as a wife, who is ready to go through adversity with your spouse. If they become ill, like for example, what if one of the spouses, gets a really bad illness or gets in a horrible accident. There are people literally divorce their spouse because their spouse is in the hospital dying of some illness, or suffering with some kind of an ailment. That’s terrible, that should be the time when you are there the most for that person. If they are injured and they are hurt, you say, this is just a liability now, but you know what, marriage is not about just take, take, take, it's about what you can give.

And the Bible says, "A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." Right, adversity. Go to Chapter 18, Verse 24 says this, "A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly; and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." What the Bible is saying there is that, if we want to have a friend we need to be a friend, and so instead of sitting and listening to sermon right now and saying; man, I do wish my husband will be more of a friend. Or, I wish my wife would be more of a friend to me. You need to just be a friend. Show yourself friendly, and then, hopefully the other person will eventually reciprocate.

Look at Chapter 27, there's a lot of good information on friendship in Proverbs Chapter 27, because remember she said about her husband, she said, he's not just my beloved he's also my friend. Look at Proverbs 27, Verse 5, it says, "Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful."

Look at that verse in Verse 5, "Open rebuke is better than secret love." Do you know what that tells me, that tells me that not expressing love to your spouse is very hurtful to your spouse, because he's saying, look, secret love, meaning love that’s not shown, love that’s not demonstrated, love that’s not expressed, love that nobody knows is even there, can be even worse than open rebuke.

Now let me as you this, do you think that my wife would like it if I just openly rebuked her right now in front of everybody?

RESPONSE: No.

If I just openly rebuked my wife publicly, obviously that would make her very upset, but do you know what, it's worse, according to the Bible. It's if I did not express any love to my wife. If I just didn’t show any love to my wife, open rebuke is better than secret love, and open rebuke is not that good, as far as what you want.

What that tells me is that it's important, and the whole Book of Song of Solomon, is all these expressions of love between husband and wife. That tells me that it's important to us that we express, it's great that you love … I'm glad you love your wife, but you need to verbalize the love for your wife, you need to tell your wife that you love her often. And wives need to often tell their husband.

You see he doesn’t care, he's not that romantic type, but do you what, he still needs to be told that you love him, he's just so expressive. Now some people basically what they’ll do is, they’ll say, well, I'm not going to tell my wife that I love her I'm just going to do nice things for her. That’s how I'll show my love. Or maybe wives will say, I'm not going to tell my husband that I love him, I'm not going to praise him, and compliment him, but what I'm going to do is, I'm just going to do things for him. I'll just do some really nice things, I'll make some really good food for him, or I'll do some things to help him out.

But do you know what though, you need to also verbalize your feelings also, because sometimes, some people are different in this area. Some people you do something nice for them and they feel very loved. Other people need to hear it spoken. Some people are the opposite. Some people you can tell them that you love all day long, and they don't listen, but when you do something for them, now they believe you, now they feel loved. So you need to express your love toward your spouse in as many ways possible, and in a way that they understand.

And you need to open your mouth and speak, that you love your spouse, and not just say, well, I told her that I love her and if I change my mind I'll let her know. I told her five years ago, and I'll let you know if that changes.

Look at Verse 10, it says, "Thine own friend, and thy Father's friend, forsake not." And by the way, back to that point in Verse 5, " Open rebuke is better than secret love." Your friend will tell you the truth, and sometimes the truth is a rebuke. Do you know what I mean?

Here is the thing, somebody who I'm not that close with I'm less likely to rebuke them, because I don’t really feel comfortable rebuking people that I don’t really have a strong relationship with. But do you know what, the Bible says, rebuke a wise man, and he'll love thee. Someone that I know really well, I know, hey, this a wise person, this person can handle being rebuked, I'm going to rebuke this person. So if I ever rebuke you, take it as a compliment. It means that I believe that you are very wise, you can handle it.

Anyway it says in Verse 10, "Thine own friend, and thy father's friend, forsake not." Do you see how it says, forsake not your friend, and forsake not your father's friend. And see, here's the thing, Jesus Christ promised us, "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee," that should be our motto as husbands to our wife. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee, and that should be every wife's motto to her husband, I will never leave thee; and look, never means never.

RESPONSE: Amen.

What about this, no. What about if this happens, no; no exceptions. You say, you don’t mean that? Yes, I do.

RESPONSE: Amen.

Yes. I do. Well, what about … what if he's a drunk, and what if he hits me with a pillow, and what if he, it's for better or for worse, be careful who you marry. But once you are married you need to stick with them through thick and thin, it's life it's marriage, it's for life.

Look at Verse 17, it says, "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." We as friends should make each other better. We should build each other up, not tear each other down. My wife and I have been married for 13 years, and I've learned a lot of great things from my wife that help me grow in the Lord, and she has learned a lot of great things from me that have helped grow in the Lord, and so we've been able to sharpen each other.

We can both grow together and better as a result of each other. Often opposites attract, and we talked about this a lot in Song of Solomon Chapter 3, how in a lot of ways opposites attract. Now, sometimes people get married that are very much alike. Most of the time, husband and wife are very different from one another, in a lot of ways. My wife and I are very different in a lot of ways, and probably if you thought and you and your spouse, and there's probably a lot of differences between you and your spouse.

This is another thing about Internet dating, which didn’t really exist when I was dating, so I dated everybody in the human realm. But the thing about internet dating, is that some of these Internet dating sites they say they’ll match you up on like 50 points of compatibility. Who knows what I'm talking about? Basically they say, we are going to match you up on 35 points of compatibility, make sure that you guys are just talking about …

I'm thinking to myself, okay, if I go on this dating site, and typing out stats, is my sister going to come up? Is this going to tell me to marry my sister. Look! Who are you probably the most like, your sister. Because you grew up together, so it's like, I don't want to marry my sister, I don’t want to marry somebody who is just like me. Why would I want to marry somebody who is just like me. I want to marry somebody who is different than me.

Here is the thing, if you marry someone who is just like you, you're probably -- whatever bad traits you have are just going to be compounded. What's great is when you can marry someone, because you might be sitting here tonight, thinking, man, me and my spouse are just not compatible. eHarmony never would have approved this marriage.

We are incompatible on every point, but in some ways that could be good. Now if you and your spouse are a lot alike fine, but I'm just saying, if there are a lot of differences between you and your spouse, that’s actually good, because the differences can help you balance each other, you know, basically her strengths can kind of help out with your weaknesses. And you weaknesses can help out with her strength.

For example, what if you have two people who are like slobs, think about how bad that house is going to look, think about who those kids are going to grow up. But what if you have two people that are just neat freaks, that might not be the best thing either. It would be good if maybe the who is a little bit loser with organization can kind of get you to chill out a little bit, if you are obsessive compulsive.

Then also the one who is more of a neat freak, can get Mr. Slob or Ms. Slob, to get things cleaned up a little bit. Do you see how we can actually help each other grow, and basically I can use my strengths to help my wife, and help her fix things about herself. And then my wife's strengths can make up for some of my weaknesses, and that we don’t just, oh, we are both matching up on 35 points of compatibility. We are vegan, we both run, we are both obsessive, compulsive neat freaks, we both love cats, for dinner. We both, whatever, we both grew up in the same town, we are both white with blond hair and blue eyes.

It's like, are you sure you are not related, you had better your genealogy, buddy. You might be marrying your second cousin, that might not even be legal. Do you really know all your second cousins. You could probably easily accidentally marry one on one of these dating sites. You have better be careful, right. You had better check. I know the Bible says avoid genealogies, but this might be a case where you might want to whip one out, and just do a quick double check.

Let me close my sermon with this, John Chapter 15. If you met your spouse on the Internet I'm not down on you at all, I'm just saying that that’s a danger, if you are going online just trying to find somebody identical to you. I know some people met their spouse online that are different from one another, but I'm saying some of these websites they advertise this. Like, "We are going to find somebody who is just like you." So I go, I already have me, I want someone different.

But anyway look at John Chapter 15, Verse 12, it says this, this is my last verse on friendship here it says, "This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." So that’s a pretty strong love that a friend should have. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

But watch Verses 14 and 15, it says, "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you." Now here's what's interesting is that does friendship mean that there is no authority structure in place. I mean, what if the … the Bible quote is, "The husband is the head of the wife as Christ the head of the church." The Bible commands wives to obey their husbands, to submit to their husbands, to be subject unto their husbands.

And it says in 1 Peter, Chapter 3, "Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him Lord; whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement." So the Bible teaches that the husband is the Lord of his wife, the head of his wife, that the wife is to obey her husband, that’s what the Bible says. Now listen, that doesn’t mean that they are friends though. People say, ah-ah, your wife is just slave. Ah-ah, ah-ha, shut up. Anyway it says in John Chapter 15 here, he says, "The servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth, but I'd call you friends for all things I've heard of my Father I have made known unto you."

So, it's not that Jesus wasn’t the boss, because Jesus said in the same exact sermon that he's preaching in the Book of John, the same sermon he said, "Ye called me Lord and Master, you do well because that’s what I am, your Lord and Master." But he says, do you know what though, you are not just servants to me, you are more than a servant, you are above a servant, you are my friends. Wouldn’t that be great to be sitting at that table, and Jesus says, do you what, you are not just my servant Steven Anderson, you are my friend, whatever your name is, you are my friend, and so look, people have the wrong view of marriage, they think; oh, if the husband is the boss that means that it's just this cruel, cold arrangement. The Bible says you could be friends and still the boss. You could still be friends and still do whatsoever they command you and still be friends, and so on.

It says that the servant knows not what his Lord doeth, so it's not like because I'm my wife's Lord or head of the household. It's not like I just to say to her, if she asked me about something, about our household, about our finances, it's not like I'm just going to say, you just don’t worry your pretty little head about that. You don't need to know about that, you don’t need to know.

I communicate with my wife, and I can talk to my wife, and tell her what's going on and include her in what's going on and in what we are doing, just like Jesus does with us, he's not leaving us in the dark, he's not tell us, just shut up and do what you are told. That’s not what Jesus said. You know, there is this trendy new thing of saying, we are Jesus Christ's slave, we are his slave, dude. And they have these trendy pastors, do you know the trendy pastors, it's like the spiked hairdo, and the skinny jeans, and the graphic T-shirt.

And they are like; dude, you guys need to realize that our relationship with Christ is that we are his slave. As they like, don’t do anything that he told them to do. As they ignore all his commandments. As they live a licentious, lascivious life, dude we are his slave, and you look at modern Bible versions, it's not as if they even put the word "slave" in. I don't remember off the top of my head if it's the ESV or the NIV, or HIV or whatever, but these new versions will put in, that instead of saying that we are the servant of Christ, that we are his slave.

Well, do you know what, when the Bible says servant it's leaning more towards the friend side of the spectrum than just a slave. I'm not Jesus Christ's slave, I'm sorry, I'm not, I'm his friend. I'm his servant, I want to serve him, but I'm not a slave, that is not what … and by the way, do you know what, people always say, ah, the Bible teaches slavery, the word slave is never in this book one time. The word slave is never used in this book one single time.

I think it's John MacArthur that has some … do you know the guy who denies the blood of Christ. He has a book out, We are Christ's Slave, for the intellectual, not the … you’ve got these modernist, liberal rock and roll, rock on for Jesus dude, you’ve got those types of pastors. Then you’ve got the more intellectual, John MacArthur, John Piper, we are his slave, we are Jesus Christ's slave. No we are not, we are his friends.

Do you know what? People say, ah, your wife is your slave, look, she's my friend. She's my friend, but I'm still the boss. That’s what the Bible says. Doesn’t the Bible just have all the answers.

RESPONSE: Amen.

Song of Solomon is a great book, there's a lot there, sometimes you pass over stuff, but hopefully you are learning this stuff, as you come, we've got three more weeks in Song of Solomon. You need to put this stuff into practice in your life, and not just say, oh, that was a cute sermon. You need to read the Bible, you need to listen to the sermon, and I hope you are going home and reading Song of Solomon more trying to understand it, trying to grasp and trying to implement it in your own marriage and in your own homes.

Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father we thank you so much for your word, and we thank you that we are your friends. What a blessing to be called your sons, and your brethren, and your friends, and you’ve given us the great privilege of not just being a slave, not even just being a servant, but rather being a friend and a brother, and so forth. Lord, please just help us to walk worthy of that calling.

Song of Solomon 4 - Verse by Verse Bible Study

Song of Solomon 4 - Verse by Verse Bible Study

August 21, 2013

Song of Solomon Chapter 4, we continue this dialogue between husband and wife. It says Verse 1, "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks: thy hair is as a flock of goats, that appear from mount Gilead.

And to show, of course, that this is a husband speaking onto his wife, if you jump down to Verse 8, it says "Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse," and of course the word spouse means husband or wife, we are talking about people that are married. He says the word spouse again in Verse 9, Verse 10, Verse 11, Verse 12, all of these verses use the word spouse.

So this is a husband expressing his love unto his wife, and here he is praising her for her beauty, and praises different parts of her beauty. He starts out talking about her eyes, he talks about her hair, he talks about her teeth, he talks about her lips, all these different things. What we can learn from this, of course, when we read the Book of Song of Solomon is that we should be taking lessons from this about how to have a good marriage, because this describes the love and affection between husband and wife, and many marriages today are severely lacking in this area, and so we can go to Song of Solomon and understand a little bit how to improve our marriage.

And one thing that I've noticed is that some people just don’t have any interest in improving their marriage. Some people just aren’t really that interested in having a great marriage, they just don’t really care, and they are not really willing to put a lot of effort into it, because they don’t see the point, but let me say this, you are not going to have a good marriage unless you put effort into having a good marriage, and in order to put into something you have to care about something.

We spend time and energy and effort on the things that are important to us, and things that are not important to us, well those are the things that we just don’t have time for. People often say, oh, I don’t really have time to go to church, I don’t have time to go soul winning.

What they are really saying is, church is not a priority in my life. Out of the 168 hours in the week, church just isn't important enough for me to devote a few hours to it. And we always find time and make time for the things that are most important to us in life, and in order to have a good marriage you are going to make an investment in your marriage. Of your time, of your energy, and the only way you are going to do that, is if it is important to you to have a good marriage. If you care about having a good marriage.

So, some people might even that Song of Solomon preaching through Song of Solomon, reading Psalms, they just don’t have any interest in it, because their marriage just isn't that important. But you know what, that’s a very foolish decision to make that marriage isn't important and you just put all your time, into everything else in your life. Business, and fun, and maybe exercise, or maybe church, or whatever, and I mean, look, obviously serving God is number one, no question about that, but you know what, I believe firmly from my study of scripture that your marriage should be number two.

That it shouldn’t just be down at the bottom of the list after bowling. Your bowling buddies and after everything else, your marriage should be very high on your priority list. Marriage is an important relationship that pictures Christ love for the church. Does Christ have us on the backburner? Do we have Christ on the backburner? It's an important relationship if we study scripture, and so I believe that we should look at the Book of Song of Solomon, and the whole Bible in general to try to understand how to have a better marriage and improve our relationship with our wife and with our husband.

So, first of all, the first thing I see here as this husband is praising his wife's beauty is that he is being very specific, not just you are beautiful, period, you are pretty. He is going into a little more detail than that, right guys? He is actually being very specific, and if you want to express love to your wife in this way, you should also be specific and wax eloquent and not just, do you want to give your wife … you are beautiful honey. You could go into a little more detail.

Now, every woman does not look the same, and as we read though some of these descriptions of both husband and wife, in Song of Solomon, they might not necessarily fit the bill of your spouse. For example, she talks about how her husband's hair is black like a raven, well that’s not going to work if your husband has blond hair. But what we see here is not as important what is being praised about the wife or the husband, but just the fact that the husband is praising the wife's appearance and that he is being specific.

So don't get so hung up on exactly what's being said, because frankly everybody looks different, every woman is beautiful in her own way, some of it is not all going to match up exactly. And some of these also maybe not really fitting in with our culture today. I'm reading this, look at Verse 1, of Chapter 4, it says, "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes within thy locks." So he's telling her that her eyes are beautiful, I don't really know what that means about having doves' eyes. I guess I have not really paid that much attention to a bird's eyes.

Now I've looked at the chickens in my backyard, I've looked at their eyes, and I'll tell you what I think, when I look into their eyes, when I look into those chickens' eyes, here's the thought that always comes to my mind, the lights are on, but nobody is home. Those chickens have got to be the most unintelligent animals that I've ever seen.

But anyway, he says that she has doves' eyes within her locks, he says, "Thy hair is as a flock of goats," and again, maybe I'm just a city boy, but I've never looked at any woman's hair and thought of a flock of goats. I don't really know, necessarily, what a flock of goats looks like, I haven't really seen a lot of goats in my life. I did drink a glass of goat's milk with my dinner last, that’s the closest thing.

Again, I'm not getting too hung up of understanding the culture, of saying that your wife's hair looks like a flock of goats, that appear from Mount Gilead." He said, "Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and none is barren among them. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet…" Okay that makes sense, he's talking about the redness of her lips, the whiteness of her teeth. Okay I can understand those thing.

"Thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks." Locks referring to hair. "Thy neck is like the tower of David." I don’t know if necessarily women in 2013 would take this as a compliment. And again later he uses the same thing, in Chapter 7 where he is telling her, her neck is like a tower, but different cultures view different things as beautiful, and obviously he's complimenting her.

He says in Verse 4, "Thy neck is like the tower of David, builded for an armory, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies."

So he's listing all these different parts of her body, her lips, her breast, her hair her eyes, and he's praising her for her beauty, and here is the thing, you say, well my wife I just not that beautiful, you might think to yourself, or whatever, I hope you don’t think that about your wife, that’s an awful thing to think.

But let me say this, you know, our society has a very narrow view of what beautiful is, right. because our society through television and magazines, and so forth, has this homogenization of the culture where there is a certain model, or a certain actress that’s kind of put out there as like, okay, this is the standard, this is what is beautiful, this is … and the closer you look to that standard, the more beautiful you are, and the further away from that standard you are the less beautiful you are.

But in reality, God has made all of us differently. All of us as men do not look the same. All of the ladies do not look the same. What is beautiful, the expression goes, beauty is in eye of the beholder. Also the Bible talks about that a woman who is a beautiful woman, but she's without discretion, she's without godliness. She's beautiful on the outside but she doesn’t have any character, the Bible says that is like a jewel in a pig's snout. You are decorating something that’s dirty, that’s disgusting, and it doesn’t really make it any better just for that jewel or the way that it looks.

What we need to understand is that God has made different types of women, different types of men, and if that’s how God made you obviously it's not an accident or a mistake, obviously you are beautiful in your own as a woman, and as a man, you are handsome in your way. So, obviously if you look at a woman who is perhaps beautiful on the outside, or beautiful by the world's standards, but you know how wicked she is. You might still be repulsed by that person. Well the opposite is true too. Somebody who may be on the outside is not necessarily that beautiful by the world's standards. But when you love that person, when you love them for who they are on the inside, then you will start to see the things about them on the outside that are beautiful.

And look, everybody has some attributes about them that are beautiful because we are all created by God and the Bible says that we fearfully and wonderfully made. And so you can't just get this idea in your head of just, everybody has to look like e every guy has to look like … who are the good-looking guys of this world, Brad Pitt…

RESPONSE: Schwarzenegger.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, really? Who thinks Arnold Schwarzenegger is a handsome man?

Anyway the men of this world, the Tom Cruise and the Brad Pitt, and these guys that women … By the way, if you knew these guys in real life, you'd be disgusted by them, they are such fools, they are such ungodly, wicked men, and often on the movies they’ll play like a macho man or a tough guy, and then in reality they are a little wussie or whatever in real life.

Because everything on TV is not real, so what I'm saying is, we as men don’t have to look like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and whoever, and obviously the ladies don’t have to look like, what, Angelina Jolie, or whatever before she mutilated herself in the chest. Whatever other women?

RESPONSE: Jennifer Aniston.

Jennifer Aniston, or Angelina Jolie, what are the other women that are idolized as beautiful today.

RESPONSE: Judge Judy.

Come on, we are trying to have a serious sermon here, people. Let's get serious about this sermon. I'm just saying everybody doesn’t have to look like this anorexic, Angelina Jolie look, where you just fit this certain mould in order to be beautiful. That's why today I seems like I've known more women that have eating disorders that don't have eating disorders. It's almost like … it's not notable if you have one, it's notable if you don’t. Because it's just everybody is so obsessed with the way that they look and they feel like they have to be a certain way, in order to be … instead of just being themselves.

I'm all for being healthy. I'm all for staying fit, and trim, and I'm all for eating healthy and everything like that that, but do you what, you don’t have to just sit there and look like this certain look. Do you know what? There are men out there who like a woman that’s very slender. And then there are men out there who like a woman that's more full-figured. There are men that are short and tall, and there are women that are tall, short, big, small, and everybody has different taste.

There are people that are white, there are people that are dark-skinned and different people have different preferences about what they think looks nice and what doesn’t, so don’t let the world teach you that there's just this one certain standard. You are married, obviously you married your wife because you found her to be beautiful in your eyes. And so you should express that to her, and if there's something about her that’s not beautiful, well then focus on the part of her that is the most beautiful.

And I'm sure that you could find many things to praise about your wife's appearance. I'm not saying to make things up or to be insincere, you should be sincere in your praise, it should be real, it shouldn’t be fake, and you are just like, what did Song of Solomon say? If you try to copy, if you try to copy Song of Solomon you are going to sound pretty weird in 2013.

If you are just like, okay, well, I'm going just going to say this, the stuff Solomon said. It's not going to work, and maybe God did it that way on purpose, maybe you did in a way where you can't just copy it. You are going to have to come up with your own, because none of these are going to work. You are going to have to come up with your own compliments to give you wife.

Also, later in the book we see the wife even complimenting her husband's appearance, in a different, but she's complimenting, strong arms and strong legs, and the way his hair is, all the different things, so we see here that the husband is praising his wife's appearance, we should do the same thing, we should be specific about it, it should be real, we should just find the things that we like the most about our wife's appearance and praise those things, and express those things.

And a lot of times we have a lot of good thoughts in our mind toward our spouse, maybe we have a lot of loving feelings in our heart toward our spouse, but we should express those things verbally. We should actually say those things, and express those things. Because remember back in Chapter 1 of Song of Solomon, this woman was very down on her appearance. In verses 5 and 6 of Chapter 1, she was down on her appearance, and then he's basically coming in and telling her how beautiful she is, okay, and that’s the same thing that we see in Chapter 4.

It says in Verse 6, "Until the day break, and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh, and to the hill of frankincense." Verse 7, "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee."

Again, praising her appearance, but what's interesting is, let's compare to Ephesians 5, there is a similar scripture in Ephesians 5, flip over there in the New Testament, because although the primary application of Song of Solomon is the relationship between a husband and wife, there are also other symbolic or spiritual applications that are going on beneath the surface of Song of Solomon.

But lesson 1 from Song of Solomon Chapter 4 is to praise wife's appearance, be specific, wax eloquent, you say, well, I'm just embarrassed, just do it anyway. Pray for boldness.

But in Ephesians Chapter 5 we see a discussion about husband and wife, and we see something very similar to what the Bible said in Song of Solomon 3:7, when it said, "Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spots in thee."

That made me think of Ephesians 5, it says in Verse 22, " Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; "That he might sanctify and cleanse it," pay close attention to Verse 26, "That he might sanctify and cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church," look at the next three words, "Not having spot," remember what it said back in Song of Solomon 3:7, "There's no spot in thee."

Here it says, "That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself."

Now, look, what we see here is that when the Bible is telling the husbands to love their wives, that is being compared to Christ loving the church, and one of the examples of how Christ love the church, is that he gave himself for it, that’s talking about the fact that he died on the cross. But that’s not only example of Christ love that’s given here.

Number one is that he gave himself forth, but then look what it says in Verse 26, that he might sanctify and cleanse it, but first of all Christ's love toward us is manifest in the fact that he gave himself forth, that he died for us. But he didn’t even just stop there, did he? He also sanctified and cleanses us on a continual basis with the washing of water by the word, and the reason that he does that, Verse 27 is, " That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."

So, what the Bible is referring to when it talks about having a spot or a blemish, we all know what that is don’t we. "We talk about imperfections physically, and we know that of course all of us, none of us like Absalom, who just had no blemish or spot in him, or like the woman in Song of Solomon 3:7, that supposedly, according to Solomon, had no spot or blemish in her.

But do you know what, all of us have spots and blemishes, and that is imperfections in our skin, or in our complexion, of our face of our bodies, we have spots, and what God is referring to there, is that the church represented by the wife, because husbands love the wife, just like Christ love the church, those spots or blemishes physically, or something that God is using as an illustration of sin in the church, or imperfections in the church.

Today, our church is not perfect is it. The people of our church are not perfect. Our church has spots or blemishes, physical imperfections are used here as an illustration of spiritual imperfection in our church. None of us is perfect we have spots, spiritually, we have spiritual blemishes, we have sin in our lives, imperfections in our walk with God. And the Bible is saying that Christ loves church, he died for us, but he's also in the process of sanctifying us, cleansing us up, and trying to get the sin out of our lives, trying to make us more like him, so that basically we can be a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing.

He is not talking about literally removing spots and wrinkles from the church, but he is using those physical imperfections of spots and wrinkles as an illustration of spiritual problems in the church. Basically in our lives once we get saved we are supposed to be constantly improving. When we first get saved obviously it's not just this instantaneous change, all of a sudden all the sins out of our lives, all of a sudden we are just living a marvelous Christian life.

There is a process of sanctification, of growth, of cleansing, where God is removing spots and blemishes from our lives and cleaning us up, and you see when this is compared to marriage here, in Ephesians Chapter 5, what I see from this is that if the husband is the leader which the Bible said, as Christ is the head of the church, the husband is the head of the wife. If Christ is the leader of the church, that doesn’t mean that he just wants to be served, and that he is just obeyed and that’s it. His leadership is also taking the follower and leading them somewhere better, to greener pastures.

So, we, as husbands, being the leader in our home doesn’t just mean that we are the boss, I mean that’s part of it, obviously if the husband is the head of the home that makes him the boss, but being the boss is not just all about being served, or just all about being obeyed, even though that is part of it. Being a leader is about serving the follower and leading the follower and helping the follower.

For example, I strongly believe that the husband should be a spiritual leader of his wife, and help her to be without spot and blemish spiritually, just as Christ does so for the church. You see, the Bible even teaches in 1 Corinthians 14, that women should keep silence in the church, and it says, "If they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home."

Well what good is it going to do for the wife to ask her husband at home, if he doesn’t know the Bible, and he doesn’t know what he is talking about. If every time the wife asks the husband a spiritual question and he said, well I don't know, is that really helpful? No. Is that being the leader that he should be? I'm not saying this so that wives can stand in judgment of their husband, and be that, my husband he is, I wish you were here to hear this sermon, or whatever.

I'm preaching to the men right now. Don’t insult your husband, I'm preaching to men right now, and I'm assuming that if you are a man and you are married and you are here on a Wednesday night, you are here because you want to be a godly leader in your home, that’s why you are in church on Wednesday night, to learn these things.

And those men in the room that are single, have a desire to someday be married and to be a godly leader of their wife, and being a leader is going to involve you spiritually leading in your home. Knowing the Bible well enough to answer those questions, and to be able to teach the Bible to your wife, to your children, and to be a spiritual leader that’s going to help her grow and be a better Christian.

Because if Christ loves the church he gave himself for it, he said he's going to sanctify it, cleanse it, with the washing of water by the word. That sounds like I should preach the word of God onto my wife, help cleanse her, help sanctify her, help her get the spot and wrinkle out of her life. Not that I'm better than her, but you know what, I do need to get ahead of her spiritually if I'm going to be the right type of husband. That's what I believe.

I do not believe that the wife should be ahead of her husband spiritually, and I'm not saying for the wife to slow down, I'm saying for the husband to speed up, and I'm saying that we, as men, need to understand that it is our job to spiritually lead that home, and God requires more of us as men spiritually. We need to be in our Bibles more, we need to be taking a stronger stand, we need to have a strict view of the word of God by which we live our lives and lead our family and direct our family.

Look, we should not be a bad influence on our families spiritually. Are you listening? We should not be increasing the blemishes, and increasing the spots in our life. We shouldn’t be teaching her to sin and leading her into sin, and brining sin into the home, bringing into the home, bringing home movies and putting them on, hey, let's watch this movie, and hey, let's drink alcohol together, and hey, let's go out to the club.

Introducing all this sin that was perhaps even unknown unto a wife, and we are dragging her down, and being a bad influence. The contrary should be true, that we should be a positive influence on our wife, trying to lift her spiritually, teaching her new things from the Bible, leading her to be a better Christian, and look, not just leading by telling her, but showing her, be an example.

Christ left us an example that we should follow in his steps, isn't that part of how he cleanses and sanctifies us, he showed us how to do it, he didn’t just tell us how to do it. We as husbands need to be a spiritual leader in the home, we need to model the way, we need to demonstrate the Christian life, we need to be a godly example for our wife to follow. We should be worth following, and then we should teach and preach the word of God to our family.

Men today that are listening to me, maybe you are one that wants to pastor a church some day. The first church that you ever pastor is your family. Don’t take that and say, oh, I'm going to quit going to church. Don’t even get me started on that. Obviously our family is not church, but it is a good illustration of church, and God said, if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of God.

You see, the ruling of the home, notice how it's synonymous with the taking care of the home. It's not just a self-serving rule, it's just I'm ruling, I'm the boss, I'm to be obeyed, it's all about me, but rather it is one where I'm going to use my position of authority in the home, to help bring my whole family closer to God, help bring them all into greater service for God, I'm going to lead, and I'm going to show them, and say, come with me and see my zeal for the Lord, and to be an example, to lead by example, to be right there, leading the way, not saying, do as I say, not as I do, but showing as a example.

That’s Ephesians 5 teach us, so part of being a husband is being a leader and that means being someone that’s worth following, and do you know what, to lead, you’ve got to be in the front. If you are back of the pack, you are not leading, are you? Have you heard the expression, leading from behind. Good, it doesn’t make any sense. You should be out in front leading. You don’t want to be trailing behind the group, you are way behind, guys wait, let me tell you where to go guys. No, you should be out there in the front if you want to lead, you’ve got to get in front of her if you want to lead.

That's good advice for leadership right there, get out front and it's going to be a lot easier for you to be leader. I see a lot of marriages, where the wife is ahead of the husband spiritually, you see a wife that’s doing a lot of Bible reading, going to a lot of church, doing a lot of soul winning, and then the husband is just really not that interested in spiritual things, and he is way behind her spiritually. That is a really unhealthy situation to have.

Then the woman will sometime say, why do you have to be the leader, because he's just so far behind me. That’s a tragedy, that’s a bad situation. You say, how do I fix it? Look, that guy is going to have to … that guys is going to have to get out front and start leading, and take over, and he's got to study his Bible, and get interested in church, get interested in the things of God, so that it can be effective spiritual leader.

So the first thing we learn tonight, go back to Song of Solomon Chapter 4, the first thing we see that the husband should braise his beauty, he should be specific, he should wax eloquent, he should find attributes about his wife to praise, whether it's her hair, whether it's her lips, whether it's her breast, whatever it is the Bible is listing all these different things, these are just examples of things that can be praised about the wife's appearance to make her feel loved and to express your love to your wife.

The he also uses that phrase in Verse 7, "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee." Obviously that’s referring to physically, but so much the more spiritually, they should be without spot and blemish, we should be a leader, help them achieve that status.

Verse 8 says, "Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon: look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards."

Again, leadership, come with me, follow me, go where I'm going, and again, that ties in perfectly with Verse 7. Look at Verse 9, it says, "Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck."

And you say but why is he calling her my sister, my spouse, well obviously this is not his physical sister, this isn't West Virginia, or Kentucky, but he's saying here, my sister my spouse because of the fact that those of us that are saved, are brothers and sisters in Christ, because God is our Father.

So, we need to understand the importance of marrying a woman that is a sister, because of the fact that if we marry one that is not a sister, that is not in Christ, we are being unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And the Bible says, "What fellowship hath unrighteousness with righteousness? What concord hath Christ with Belial? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel," and the Bible says, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. How can you as a godly Christian have fellowship and conquer and be going the same direction with someone who is not even saved?

Now if you are a very backsliding worldly Christian you can probably get along with unsaved people just fine, because you are living like you are unsaved anyway. But you know what, down the road one day, you might actually decide to start wanting to serve God, and the more you want start to serve God, the more you put on the new man and walk in the spirit, all of a sudden you and your spouse are going to be going two very different directions, and you are going to have serious problems in your marriage.

Do you know what? If that’s your situation, you are in a bad situation, if you are married to someone that’s not saved, the mistake you made was marrying someone that wasn’t saved. And a lot of times now you are in a position that’s difficult, you’ve got to just do the best you can within that situation, let's say your husband is not saved, he's not leading you spiritually, he's not even saved, but you should do the best you can to submit to him, and obey him in all things, and be the most godly righteous wife that you can be, hopefully your example can eventually help win him to Christ.

If you are a saved husband, and your wife is not saved, you can be the best leader, and the best example you can be, and eventually, hopefully, you can win your wife to Christ, I mean that’s the goal, but it's a bad situation, and so young people, and teenagers, and young singles do not play around with this. Don’t take a chance, don’t even marry somebody or date somebody, or date somebody, where you are like, well, they are saved. They are kind of … they go to so-and-so, first church of the deep freeze, I don’t know maybe they are saved, they kind of believe the gospel over there.

Oh, she's Episcopalian, that’s Christian, right? Do you know what I mean? She's United Methodist, I mean, like this, she says she believes in Jesus. Why not try to find somebody that you can be pretty confident to say actually saved.

And do you know what is amazing, people will be … Christian young people will date someone for months, and then you ask that person about the person they are dating. So what's the spiritual background, what kind of church they go to? Oh, we haven't really talked about that. What have you talked about? What are you talking about, what meaningless unimportant things are you talking about for months, and you don’t even know whether they’ve grown up going to church. You don’t even know what they believe about salvation, or about eternal security, or about church, and what their doctrines are.

Look! If you are dating, talk about spiritual things, with someone that you are thinking about spending the rest of your life with, so that you don’t just wake up one morning, and you are married to somebody who believes completely differently than you. And it's too late to make that decision. So, make sure that your wife is a sister, make sure that your husband is a brother in Christ. Try to, of course, make as certain as you can that the person that you are marrying is saved, first and foremost. That's the most important criteria in a spouse, is that they are save.

He says in Verse 9, "Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse; thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thy neck. How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy love than wine! and the smell of thine ointments than all spices!"

Now look! These are very strong feeling that he's expressing toward his wife. I mean, the word ravish is a pretty strong word, it's like that word that I alluded to last week, do you remember that also starts with an R, that’s another synonym for the word ravished. Ravished is a very, very strong word about the intensity and the passion of the love that he has from his heart unto his wife.

Now if you would look … let's go forward a little bit, because I want to tie in Verse 9 with Verse 12, let's keep reading. He uses the word ravished about he feels about his wife. He says, "How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse! How much better is thy love than wine! And the smell of thine ointments than all spices!"

Do you know what? If you really love your wife, and have a great relationship with your wife, you don’t have go out and get drunk to have a good time. I see people go to the store, husband and wife, with a whole bunch of booze in the cart. I saw one time this soldier that had just got home from being deployed he just got home, and he's coming home to his young wife, and they just have all this liquor in the cart. Let's just get so drunk that we forget how much we don’t like each other. Is that what it is?

Look! If you really love your wife, do you have to just get drunk in order to spend any time with her. I mean what a … it's so ridiculous. I'm sorry, I just don’t understand drunkenness. Do you know what? God hates drunkenness and God has a lot of very negative things to say about drunkenness. Do you know what, we as Christians we shouldn’t need alcohol at all in our lives.

RESPONSE: That’s right. Amen.

The Bible says, "It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink, lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more."

Drinking is for losers, because they have to just forget the misery and forget the poverty of their, and just forget what they are loser they are, they have to drink to just numb themselves to reality. He said here, that his wife's love is better than win, it's better than going out and drinking for a good time, why don’t you spend a good time with your spouse. And if you really love your spouse you don’t need to drown your sorrows about how miserable you are.

Anyway, it says in Verse 11, "Thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under thy tongue; and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon."

So without being graphic in Verse 11, this guy figured out what his wife's lips and tongue taste like, and she figured out what his lips and tongue tastes like. Enough said. This is the type of relationship that we should within marriage. He said, I can't believe … what else am I supposed to preach about Verse 11. I'm trying to go verse by verse through the Song of Solomon, you kiss your wife on the cheek. What's wrong with you, and he would say, well, when you’ve been married as long as we have.

You shouldn’t let marriage get to that point. You kiss your wife on the cheek once a month, it's time … Do you know what, let me give you a tip guys, if you go to kiss your wife and she tries the Sermon on the Mount and turn the other cheek. Do you know what, just grab the back of her head, and just tilt it the way it needs to be, friend, and she'll thank you for it.

But anyway, turn if you would to … keep your finger on Song of Solomon 4, and turn to Proverbs Chapter 5. And this is just good, practical from the word of God, by the way. You try to kiss your wife on the mouth and she turns her cheek to you, you grab the back of her head, and tilt it around and kiss her where you ought to kiss her. The same thing goes the other way. I don’t believe in this thing that the world teaches that basically, yeah, it's your wife, it's your husband, you just act all cold to each other. That’s not what the Bible is teaching. In Song of Solomon 4:12 it says, " A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." Now the Bible interprets that in Proverbs 5. Now notice the adjectives there Song of Solomon 4:12, "A garden enclosed …" what does it mean to have an enclosed garden. Like a wall around it, right. Isn't that what it means like a fence around it or a wall. A garden that’s no enclosed with be what? Open to the public, a garden that’s not enclosed is open to the public. A garden that’s enclosed is sealed off, it's walled, it's fenced in, it's private. Isn't it what that means?

Look at the next phrase, "A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." So we see that it's enclosed, it's shut and it's sealed, meaning that it is private, meaning that it is for him alone and no one else, doesn’t that make sense? This fountain is for him along, this garden this spring is only for him and no one else.

Look at Proverbs 5, where the same exact thing is taught, Remember the word fountain in Song of Solomon 4:12, it says verse 15 of Proverbs 5, "Drink waters out of thine own cistern," Now cistern is an old word, it's like one of wells that’s made out of stone, the well that you picture with the bucket that lowers down, and it's like a round stone deal, that’s what a cistern is.

It says, "Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets."

And then look at Verse 17, and tell me if it reminds you of Song of Solomon 4:12, "Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee." Do you see that? The concept of being enclosed or sealed. And then it says, "Let thy fountain be blessed, and rejoice with the wife of thy youth."

Now, look! If the Bible is saying rejoice with the wife of thy youth, do you know what that sounds to me like, it sounds to me like they are not young anymore. Because it's saying the wife of thy youth, meaning the wife that you are married to, since you were young.

Keep reading, it says, " Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love." Now see the exact wording from Song of Solomon about being ravished with her love. " And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger?"

So what the Bible is teaching here is that as we get older, we should still rejoice in the wife of our youth, and say, well I'm sick of her, I loved her when I was young, I loved her when I first married but I'm not if I love her anymore. I'm not sure I love him anymore, because the newness has worn off. Yeah, when I was young we were young and n love, now we are just cold to each other, we don’t have strong feelings toward each other. We are not ravished with one another anymore.

But the Bible is teaching that we should keep love alive in our marriage, and that we should rejoice in the wife, not just stay married … look, staying married to the wife of your youth is a great place to start just staying married. But does the Bible here just say, just stay married. No. It says you should also rejoice in the wife of thy youth. That means that we should be happy about the wife of our youth, we should be happy thankful to be married to the wife that we are married to.

Not to just be indifferent about our wife, or indifferent about her husband, but actually rejoice in the wife of thy youth, and it says, " Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love."

The all times there, is referring to throughout the course of life, and then when it says, always, what that means, if you look at the word always in the Bible it's like when Jesus said, "Lo, I'm with you always even unto the end of the world." When it says, be ravished always with her love, it means that even as time goes by, always meaning, basically until the end.

It doesn’t just mean always, like morning evening and night, it means always like 5 years from, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now. She is still as a loving hind and a pleasant roe onto you. She is still someone that you rejoic3 in. She is still one with once you are ravished by her love.

Then look at Verse 20, it says; "And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman, and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord, and he pondereth all his goings. His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holding with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction; and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray."

God is giving a real strong you need to stay with your original wife. The key to not desiring to be ravished with your own wife's love. That’s what the bible says here. Because he says, "Drink water out of your own cistern, then you will not be tempted to drink out of someone else's cistern." Does everybody understand that?

Now look! If you are neglecting your own cistern and you are not drinking water out of your own cistern, you are going to get thirsty, and the next thing you know, you are looking at other cisterns, and the next thing you know you are going out to the strange woman, you are getting divorced and marrying someone else, or you are committing adultery or what have you.

It's amazing, people go out and they look for a new spouse, they divorce their old spouse and then they go out and look for a new spouse, and then all of a sudden they are just willing to put all this time and effort and energy into meeting and wooing some new spouse and then they marry that spouse and they spend all kinds of time and money and energy on the new spouse. If they would have just put all that time and energy and money and effort into their original marriage they could have just fixed it. They could have just rediscovered the love that they had with their original spouse.

But people don’t care about their marriage. And do you know what? You might just think, I don’t care about this sermon. I'm not interested in Song of Solomon, this is a boring book, these are boring sermon series, I will say we just finish up with the other four chapters and move on to, like, I don't know, the Book of Revelation or something. Hell fire and damnation. Why are we even learning about this? But do you know what, you might sit there and think to yourself that, I don’t care about any of this, my marriage isn't that great, but I really don’t care, I just have other things going on in my life, but your spouse might not feel the same way.

So, you need to realize that both you and your spouse need to get what you need out of marriage. And the Bible says here that the best way to prevent the desire to trade up spouses. And look, you say, why are you preaching on this? Because like 75 percent of marriages end in divorce, because it's more common in America for people to trade up spouses than to stay with their original spouse, it's more common; the norm, the norm is to change spouse in the course of your life.

When somebody has stayed married to the same person since their youth, that’s an exception, that’s when we say, wow that’s great, because that’s less than half, and why is it less than half, because the things that I'm preaching are not being implemented or thought of, and do you know what, it's not being preached, people aren’t practicing it, people aren’t listening. But the Bible has got all the answers, my friend, if you are listening.

Go to Song of Solomon Chapter 4 again, we see the importance of having strong feelings towards your spouse, and you say, I don’t have those feelings, you need to develop those feelings, because otherwise either you are going to have a problem or your spouse is going to have a problem, eventually, and so you need to work on this.

It says in Verse 12, "A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed." That means that we, as husbands, should be protective of our wife, and not just be one that just says, well, you know, I'm just not really the jealous, husband type, so if my wife wants to go and hang around with other guys, or go out to eat with other guys, and hang on the phone to her male friend, that’s okay with me. You need to be more protective of your wife and enclose her and shut her up. No, I'm just kidding.

Anyway, enclose her, seal up. Do you know what? You should have a possessive mentality of your wife, and wives also should have a possessive mentality of their husband and not want to share them with someone else, and that’s what we see in Verse 12.

It says, "Thy plants are an orchard…" And by the way, I think that this also refers to the fact that what goes on within marriage, especially in the bedroom which is what is being alluded in the next several verses, should be kept private within marriage. It shouldn’t just be on display for the world. When he talks about having a physical relationship with his wife, in this passage and other passages, in the Song of Solomon, he often refers to having a physical relationship with his wife, and as entering into the garden. He uses this metaphorical term of basically a private place that is just shared between husband and wife and no one else.

That tells me that we should not speak openly about the things that go on privately between us and our spouse, that should be a private matter between the husband and wife that should not be shared with anyone else, this is not … and I don’t think that Christians are usually guilty of this, but people would get together and chat about … women chatting with other women, or men chatting with other men about intimate things about their marriage, that’s something that should be kept private.

The details should be gone into. That’s why as I preach and as we read the Song of Solomon there's no detail. The concept is there, like I would be very comfortable to speak onto another man of biblical concepts, and to say, well the Bible says this about what goes on the bedroom, nothing detailed, nothing about the specifics, just basically to go as far as the Bible goes. To say, here is what the Bible says about the physical relationship that you should have with your spouse, and not to go further than that, because there's a privacy there that should not be breached.

Where we are just going around talking about the things, and the Bible talks about having discretion, and not talking about things that shouldn’t be talked about, and I don’t think that the specifics of the bedroom should be spoken of outside the bedroom. I think that should be kept private a husband and wife. And there are people out there in this wicked world that we live in, that thing that basically children, even, need to be taught the specifics of exactly what goes on in the bedroom.

If you send your kid to the public (fool ? 00:49:11) system, they are going to sit there a class called you know what education, where they are going to sit your kid down and give them just every detail of what goes on in the bedroom and then they’ll detail stuff that doesn’t even go on in the bedroom of normal people. Do you know what I mean?

They’ll detail sodomy, they’ll detail all kinds of weird stuff and they’ll teach that to your kids, and they’ll say, well kids need to know about this stuff, and then you'll even see fundamental Baptist today basically teaching the young people, okay, here is what, when you get married you’ve got to do X, Y and Z, and just, going into graphic detail about exactly what they need to do when they get married.

Now, here's what's funny. Here is what I think is so funny about that, basically these fundamental Baptists they do all this preaching, to try to get kids not to commit fornication. They preach, don’t fornicate, and they have to just really make sure that these kids don’t commit fornication, but then when they get married it's like, oh, if we don’t tell them how to do it, they are not going to know what to do.

How are you so worried about them committing fornication if they are not going to know what to do? But then when they get married it's like, oh, man, we've got to give them all this instruction of exactly what to do, or they are not going to be able to figure it out.

Do you know what? Like I said about the chickens in my backyard, that are probably the dumbest animals in the world. Sorry, I'm not trying to offend you kids who take care of the chickens, but they figure out how to reproduce. They’ve been reproducing for thousands of years, in fact, every animal in this world knows how to reproduce, but apparently human beings just can't figure it out, like you are just going to get married and you just never figure it out, brrr-brrr. Like, you're just going to get married and you just never figure it out, it's just, I don’t know. I can't figure it out.

It's called instinct, I mean animals figure it out without being taught, it's like, look, when a baby … and I know people are laughing but this is not … some people are laughing just because they always laugh, but I'm not trying to be funny here, I'm being dead serious right now, that when a baby is born it knows how to eat, but look, babies live under water for nine months, and then they come out the womb and all of a sudden they know how to breathe.

And then all of a sudden they know how to breast feed, right. Do you have to teach them how to breastfeed, how to breathe? No. Isn't it just automatic, because it's instinct, because God has created us built in with a certain level of knowledge built in just like animals, they just know what to do, I mean, they just start flying. It's not like the bird has to sit there and teach them everything about how to fly, I mean, one day they just start flying, they hatch from an egg and they just walk out of that egg, and they just start eating, and they know, I eat this, I don’t eat this, it's just programming from the creator.

Look! We as human beings are more intelligent than animals, not less intelligent.

RESPONSE: Amen.

Oh, the dolphin. Well, shut up. Human beings are far more intelligent than any animal on this planet, and there's not an animal on this planet that goes to a you know what education class, and sits down and, okay here is how you are going to do it. They just figure it out. Do you know what I'm saying? And do you know what, you are going to figure it out too when you get married kids, you are going to know what to do. You don’t need this graphic instruction where somebody just goes into every detail, do you know what I'm talking about, and just sits there, and just tells you just every graphic day, here is, let me show you drawings, and let me explain it all to you, and just tells you exactly what to do.

That stuff should be kept private within marriage, and it should be something that’s talked about openly and preached about from the pulpit. And these liberal churches that’s how they get a crowd now, they just do seminars on what to do in the bedroom, and then they have all these people show up. That’s not something that God ever commanded us to do, and it's not something that God ever taught in the Bible.

Anyway he says in Verse 12, "A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with pleasant fruits; camphire, with spikenard, spikenard and saffron; calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense; myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices." These are all basically just tastes and smells; what's being listed there, just taste and smells, just more compliments that he's giving to his wife.

"A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon; awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits."

It's a metaphor, it's an illustration, going into the garden eating the pleasant fruit, it's just talking about a private place between husband and wife in marriage.

So let me just summarize what we've gotten out of this Chapter and what we've learned from this Chapter, and really, there are some great truth in every Chapter of Song of Solomon that can be helpful to you in your marriage. The first thing we saw is that you should compliment your wife's appearance, and that you should be very specific about it, and find things about your wife that you like the most and compliment her about that.

The next thing is that you should be the spiritual leader of your wife, and try to not just be boss, although that’s important or just, hey, I'm here to be obeyed, rather, it's to lead her somewhere to take her somewhere spiritually to take her to greater heights spiritually, to teach her the things of God, to set the example for godly and righteous living. Getting the sin out of our life, getting the sin out of my life, getting the sin out of my wife's life, getting the sin out of my children's life, just leading the whole family unit toward holiness, toward righteousness, toward godly living. That is what being the spiritual leader of your home is. We saw that.

The next thing we saw is that you should be married onto a believer, a sister, you should make sure that before you get married that you are equally yoked together in Christ Jesus. The next thing we saw is very strong, intense feelings that the husband has toward his wife.

Last week we saw intense feelings that the wife had toward her husband. This week we see the intensity of love and feeling that the husband has for his wife. We saw that those feelings should exist even after many years of marriage, they should always be there the Bible said, all the time they should be there, even when you are old, you should still rejoice in the wife of your youth, and not let this thing of; well, the newness has worn off and just become bored with your spouse and start looking to another well, you should continue even after many years of marriage to invest in the marriage, have strong feelings about your wife, make it a priority, and drink waters out of your own cistern, be ravished always with her love.

Next, we saw that the wife should be a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, and a fountain sealed, meaning that you should be protective of your wife, she should be for you alone and not for others, you should be jealous and possessive of your wife, and then we also saw that that also refers to the fact that the bedroom and the things that go on between you and your wife, in the bedroom should be kept private between you and your wife, and that it should be something that is just between you and her. And it should not be shared publicly, or just openly discussed and talked about, and, oh, blah-blah-blah. It's totally indiscrete to do so.

Let these lessons be something that can help you have a better marriage, because it's very important and it should be a high priority to you to have a good marriage.

Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much for this passage and the things that we could learn, you’ve told us that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine. Please just help us to apply these doctrines and to learn these truths, and to allow them to improve our marriage and improve our lives, and that both husband and wife would learn most of sermon was geared toward the husband's an help both husband and wife to learn these principles in Jesus' name we pray.