SONG OF SOLOMON 1-8 GODS MODEL FOR LOVE AND ROMANCE2016 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Song Of Solomon 1-8 Gods Model For Love And Romance

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2016.

I'd like to begin the service just by reading through the first few verses here in chapter one, and then we'll talk a little bit about the book and get into some of the details here. So would you read along with me? In Song of Solomon chapter one, I'm gonna read for you verses one through seven. Here's what it says. "'The song of songs, which is Solomon's, "'let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, "'for your love is better than wine.'

Verse 6.

Let's pray.

Lord, as we are gathered together this morning, I pray for our hearts, Lord, that you would use your word to bring great truth, Lord, and the reality that you present to us in a way that we could relate to and understand and, God, and able to grasp hold of your view of life and specifically your view of love.

I pray, Lord, that you would minister to our hearts that we would love in the way that you have called us to. Lord, that we would have the right perspective. And Lord, that we would be delivered from the perverted view of love that is presented to us on all sides by the world around us. And so, Lord, teach us your truths that we could hold on to them and walk in them. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.

So we're in the Song of Solomon this morning, which is a really interesting book to be in on a Sunday morning. I probably imagine many of you didn't think about being in the Song of Solomon this morning, but it's where we are in the Word, and it's where we are as far as what God has for us. And there's a lot of things that I'm not going to get into in this book, but there are some things that are important to get into as we look at this book.

The Song of Solomon has been interpreted and approached in many different ways throughout the years, but I would summarize it to two basic approaches. That is the allegory approach, where you look at the book of Song of Solomon and you say, everything in here is all about God's love for Israel and Israel's love for God. That's what the whole purpose of the book is. That's what its meanings are. That's what it's all about. That's what it's only about.

in the New Testament era. We've kind of taken a new twist on that, and we would say, if we're looking at it as an allegory, it's a picture of Christ's love for the church and the church's love for Christ. And Pastor Charles Spurgeon, he took it that way. I think he taught like some 59 messages from the book Song of Solomon. I'm not going to do that. We're going to do this one today, and we'll move on to Isaiah next week.

But there's some illustrations and parables and allegories saying this is a picture of the love between God and his people. The other way to approach this book is to simply look at it as a love story, that it is a poem or a collection of songs describing this relationship that this couple has. And there's lots of

Like in between variations of those two viewpoints and approaches to this book. But that's kind of the two basic things, looking at it as an allegory or as a love story. Pastor John Corson says, it's the most beautiful, but perhaps the most controversial book ever.

in the entire Bible. And some people do wonder, why is this even in the Bible? Others, you know, really believe it needs to be in the Bible because of how strongly it paints the picture of Christ loving his church. Each view has its strengths and

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And so what we see in the book of Song of Solomon is a model set forth for us that God sets some example for us of what love and romance is to look like in the lives of his people. Now, of course, God has established marriage as a picture of his love for us. And so there are lots of parallels between

But those begin to break down as you begin to look at the details, especially of Song of Solomon. I liken it to comparing a hot wheel to an actual automobile. There's an image there. It's a parallel. There's good allegory there. Lots of things that correspond and relate. But

The more you look at the details, the more, you know, differences you find. And in a similar way, as you look at, you know, Christ and the church and the church and Christ and marriage between man and woman, that there's a lot of parallels and that's by design, but it's not meant to be forced upon every detail, I think, of this book. And so we're going to look at this as a model for love and romance for us to consider for our own lives and for the lives of others.

the people around us that are involved in our lives. Now, as we look at these things, I'm not going to get into all of the gory or graphic details. You know, back in like Jesus's day, they taught, they believed that you were not to read Song of Solomon. The Jewish men and women were forbidden to read Song of Solomon until they were at least 30 years old.

because of some of the content of the book. It was like, you must be this old to really study this book. And if you were married, there would maybe be an exception, but still it was discouraged, even if you were married, to read this book before you were 30 years old. But as we look at these things today, you know, that was their view. You know, as we look at these things today, we have around us

just crazy perverted views of love that are being pushed on us from all sides. We're being bombarded by the world's perverted views of love.

And there's a need, I believe, for us to understand what is right and good. And that's why I'm not afraid, I'm not ashamed to teach Song of Solomon on a Sunday morning because it needs to be openly declared and stated what God says about love and sex and intimacy and romance and those kinds of relationships are part of God's design.

But meanwhile, we're faced with billboards and commercials and music and movies and books that present all kinds of twisted and perverted and lesser understandings and views of love and romance. And so it's appropriate for God to include for us his design for how to express love and enjoy a relationship. He's not opposed to these things. He created these things and he designed them for our benefit.

This morning as we go through these things, I would encourage you to kind of examine what you hold on to, what you think about love and romance and those kinds of relationships. Because if you believe the world's version of love, it will hurt you. It will be to your detriment. But if you hold on to God's design in these things, it will bless you and you'll be so glad that you did. Well, as we begin to look at this book, the Song of Solomon,

A little bit of an introduction still is needed because as we look at this book, there's a lot that we need to take into consideration because of the nature of the book. This is a poetic book.

I think it would be useful to look at this book as a play. And if you've ever been to a play, you know, some plays are written in our time, and so they're easy to understand and follow along. But I don't know if you've ever been to a play, you know, like a Shakespeare play, or like Much Ado About Nothing, or, you know, those kinds of plays where you really have to, like, focus and pay attention and try to figure out

They're speaking English, but what are they saying? You know, it can be real difficult to understand some of the things that are presented in poetic form. Now, if those things are difficult, think about this.

This book was written not in English, like Shakespeare, right? Shakespeare can be really difficult to understand, but Shakespeare was written in English. He wrote his plays in English. It was a long time ago, and so it's a little bit different. That's why it's hard for us, but it was in our language. This book was written in a different language. It was written in Hebrew, and it was written a few thousand years before Shakespeare was ever born. So, you know, you get

the point here. The whole idea is that there's some cultural things to consider. There's some language. There's some pictures and images that if we hold on to what we immediately think of,

kind of based on our environment and what we've known, we're going to come to some wrong conclusions about the Song of Solomon. And so I would encourage you as we work our way through this to work hard not to jump to conclusions based on your first idea of what the thought or the line means, but to allow yourself to stop and think about the context and the culture that we are dealing with through the book of Song of Solomon.

Now again, as we look at this, I would encourage you to think of it as a play, and along those lines, there's three acts to this play. You have acts number one, and that is the courtship. That is the betrothal period, the dating period of this man and this woman, and that's found in Acts.

chapter 1 through chapter 3 verse 5. Then you have act 2, which is their wedding and the wedding ceremony and celebration, and that's recorded for us in chapter 3 verse 6 through chapter 5 verse 1. And then you have act 3, after the wedding, is the marriage and some of the things that they have to work through in the marriage. We get a little snapshot of that in chapter 5 through 8. And

Now along those ideas, you know, with the different acts of this play, we have a cast as well to consider. The primary character is the Shulamite. This is the bride. She's a bride from northern Israel, perhaps from Lebanon. She is the main character. She has abundant lines. It's primarily her story that's being told and her voice that's being heard throughout this book.

Then you have the beloved. That's King Solomon who marries the Shulamite. And so it's a love story between King Solomon and this Shulamite bride.

You have a female chorus called the Daughters of Jerusalem that have little minor parts here and there. They kind of interact and jump in where it's appropriate. And then also you have the Shulamites Brothers, which is kind of like a male chorus. And they also have a few parts here and there. We won't be getting into a lot of details about those two groups.

But here we have God's model for love and romance. Three acts, three points that will pull from those different parts. And the first point is found in Act 1, Song of Solomon, Chapter 1 through Chapter 3, Verse 5. The point is love with limits. Here in this first act, we see love, we see romance, we see longing, and

But the couple is not yet involved sexually because they're not yet married. And so that's an important understanding to God's design for romance and love. So let's begin in Song of Solomon chapter 1. Now if you could just imagine with me, you're there in the theater, the lights grow dim, the curtain opens, and the spotlight finds a young woman who's dreamily looking off into the distance. In verse 2...

I don't know if you like my girlish accents there, but you can kind of see that unfold, right? You can kind of see, okay, it's setting the stage for us. Right away we know it's a love story. She's dreaming about some guy that she wants to kiss.

And his love is better than wine. She's desiring for this intimacy. She's desiring for this closeness and this relationship with King Solomon.

Now, we get to know a little bit about her as she goes on. Jumping down to verse 5, she says, I am dark but lovely. O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. And so here's a first cultural difference that I'll highlight for us, the idea of being dark. She says, I'm dark but lovely. And she's really not happy about being dark.

And what she's talking about is being tanned by the sun. Look at verse 6. She says, And so what she's describing here is,

It's kind of like a little bit of a Cinderella story. Her brothers have made her work outside in the vineyard. So she's been working outside in the sun. She's been tanned by the sun. And

And in those days, for their culture, that was not an appealing thing. That was not a desirable thing. It's kind of weird for us because we have tanning salons. We have, you know, you go lay out in the sun, you try to get the tan. It was opposite for them because if you were tanned, well, that meant you were working out in the field, working out in the sun. I don't know if it's still...

Got the same kind of scorn, but sometimes Kim teases me about, you know, my farmer's tan. You know, you go up the arm, it's kind of white up there. That same kind of idea. So that was not an appealing thing for them. And so she said, don't look upon me. She was self-conscious about how dark she was from being out in the sun. And so she's been out keeping the vineyards, but she says, my own vineyard I have not kept.

And so the idea here is she hasn't taken care of her own body. She hasn't, you know, done the beauty treatments that she would prefer. She hasn't kept herself, you know, lighter and, you know, done the things that got the manicures and, you know, all those things that she would prefer because she's had to work out in the vineyard. And so we get introduced to her a little bit and understand her position in that way. Verse 7.

Now she's speaking to her beloved. She says, So she's a little bit self-conscious about herself, but she's

she's still attracted to this guy. And so she wants to meet up with King Solomon. She wants to spend some time with him. And so she tells him, hey, tell me where you're going to be. Where are you going to be feeding your flocks? I don't want to go roaming around and, you know, interact with a bunch of different people. I want to go straight to you. I want to spend time with you. I don't want to be, you know, interacting or kind of, you know, getting the impression like I just want to be with some guy who's going to be with me. You know, I

I want to be with you. I've chosen you. I'm attracted to you. I want to spend time with you. So where are you going to be? And we have the first words of the beloved in verse 8 now. He says,

And so here he tells her, hey, here's where I'm going to be. You don't know where I'm going to be? Well, here's where you can find me. Here's how to find me. And now we can spend time together. And so you can see this interaction between this couple in the beginning of their, you know, attraction and their desire to spend time together. And that attraction that they have is mutual between both of them. You can see that in verse 15 and 16.

In verse 15, the beloved says, behold, you are fair, my love. Behold, you are fair. You have dove's eyes.

Now, again, another cultural point here when he says, behold, you are fair, my love. He's not using the word fair in the Kelly Blue Book sense of the word. There, the word fair means it has some mechanical or cosmetic defects. That's not what he's saying. He's saying you are excellent. You are beautiful. And so he's attracted to her. He loves her and he has this desire for her.

She responds in verse 16, behold, you are handsome, my beloved. Yes, pleasant. Also, our bed is green. And so she is attracted to him. You're handsome. Yes, you're pleasant. I love looking at you. You're wonderful to behold. That's the kind of stuff Kim tells me all the time. And she says, also, our bed is green. Now, here again is where sometimes our mind, we see the word bed, right? Immediately, we're thinking bedroom.

but she's actually talking about the dining room. The bed, the word bed here is used for the reclining couch that they would have around the table. For them, they wouldn't have like our traditional setup in the dining room where you have chairs that are, you know, set around the table. The table would be low to the ground and there would be like these little couches that you would lay on to have dinner together, that you would feast together.

together with. And so this is what she's talking about. She's talking about the dining room, having a feast together, and she's talking about it's green. It's not yet developed. We still don't know, you know, what each other's favorite foods are. We're still learning about each other, still getting to know each other in that early phase of the relationship. It's not yet developed. We're just, you know, eating out and getting to know each other during these times of meals together.

Well, jumping now to chapter two of Song of Solomon, we continue on in verse four. The Shulamite is speaking to the daughters of Jerusalem. And she says, he brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love.

So she's recounting this event that happened. Oh, you girls, you got to know. I mean, this was so amazing. He took me to the feast at the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love. Now, that's a phrase we hear a lot in Christian circles. This is quoted. This is attributed to God's banner over us because God loves us so much. And there's definitely lots of truth in that. But here's what she's saying.

The banner in those days was used to easily identify what group you belong to.

So remember when the children of Israel were going through the wilderness, they had the banners for each tribe. Of the 12 tribes, there was 12 banners. And so when you looked at a group of people, you saw their banner, you knew immediately, oh, that's the tribe of Levi or that's the tribe of Asher. You get the point. And so it was used to easily identify groups of people. And so what she's saying is his banner over me was love. He made it publicly known. Everybody knew it was openly declared. He loves me.

It was a public declaration. Maybe that's a little bit like changing your relationship status on Facebook today. When you change that status, you make it official. It's like, we're dating, we're in a relationship, or we're married. And now everybody knows it's a public declaration of your relationship status. And that's what she's telling her girlfriends, the daughters of Jerusalem. Oh, yeah, his banner over me was love. Then verse 5, sustain me with cakes of raisins. Refresh me with apples, for I am lovesick.

And so you'll notice here, so she's talking about this feast they had together, the banquet they had together, but now they're separate because they're not married yet.

And so she had this occasion, and now she's back home. She's back with her friends, and she says, I'm lovesick, you know, feed me because I need something to eat because I'm lovesick. They're not yet together. They feasted together, but now they are separate from one another because they're not yet married. But then they get together again and spend time together. You can see in verse 8.

And so she says, And she's excited because she heard his voice. Remember those days, ladies, when you got so excited to hear his voice? And sometimes it's just like not so exciting to hear his voice anymore, right? But

But those days where it's like, oh yeah, it just brought life and made your heart pound and you're kind of leaping and dancing a little bit because you heard the voice of the one that you love. Verse 10, my beloved spoke and said to me, rise up my love, my love, my fair one and come away.

Now, the next few verses go on to describe springtime, and love is in the air, and there's all this imagery of spring with flowers, and singing, and birds, and green figs, and tender grapes, and so there's this, you know, freshness. There's this, you know, vibrant part of their relationship as they spent time together at the banquet. Now they're able to spend time together again in the springtime season.

Again, they're not married yet, but they're madly in love. They're anxious to be together. They desire to spend time together. In verse 16, she says, my beloved is mine and I am his. He feeds his flock among the lilies. And so she's expressing here this confidence in their relationship. They're not together again here in verse 16. He's out there feeding his flock and I'm over here, but he's mine and I'm his. Even though we're not in each other's physical presence yet,

There's a confidence that we are given to one another. And perhaps this is describing kind of a transition into, you know, they're just attracted to each other and now there's an official engagement. You know, they're devoted to one another. They're committed to one another. And when the time is right, they will be together.

Well, that brings us now to chapter 3, and we'll look at verse 1. Here the Shulamite says, Here in the next couple of verses is also,

what seems to be a dream that the Shulamite has. By night on my bed, she says, I sought the one I love. I sought him, but I did not find him. In her dream, she's searching for him. And in this dream, she finds him and then she brings him back to her bed. And so again, this is before they're married. And what's being described here is physical intimacy.

but it's being described in the context of a dream. And so what's really being expressed here is she's having those desires. She wants to be with Solomon in that way. She wants to have that kind of relationship with him. She's looking forward to that.

Pastor Dave Guzik says, these lines do record the sexual longing of the maiden, and this is indicated by the particular term used for bed. It's the common word for bed, distinct from the word for couch that we saw in chapter 1, verse 16. So this is talking about the bedroom scene now, not the dining room anymore, but it's not actually happening. It's talking about her desires, her

her dreams that she's having, the longing that she has. And that's really important to understand because, again, this is part of God's design. And that's why, again, the point is to love with limits, right?

Because that's the example set for us and that's the commands that are given in the scriptures. That here as they desire to be together, they are not executing all of their desires. They're not actually, you know, going through all of those things that they are desiring and longing for. She's dreaming of him. He's attracted to her. But there's limits to what they can do, to what they will do before they're married. And that's God's design.

In God's design, every sexual experience happens within the bonds of marriage. God's design is that every sexual experience happens within the bonds of marriage. There's no sexual experience that God approves of outside of marriage. That's clear in the scriptures.

Now remember, God designed it this way because this is what's best for us. And so we need to understand God's not trying to just, you know, keep us from awesome things that we would really love if we could do them. But he is protecting us by telling us this is the right way. This is what's best. And so there are limits to the type of experiences you can have before you

before marriage. And that's an important aspect to understanding God's model for love and romance.

Paul highlights this in Galatians 5, verse 19. He says, the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, and lewdness. Now, all four of those words, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, and lewdness, those are all referring to types of sexual immorality. And Paul says, these are the works of the flesh. These are the works of the flesh that will destroy you. And if you sow to the flesh, you'll reap destruction. And so again, this is

Well, the world tells us many of these things are fine, expected, you know, and should be engaged in. It's completely contrary to what God says. These things will destroy you, will hurt you. And so God's design is very different than the world's design. And God's design is much better for us. And so he's designed us to have desires, to have love and attraction, but he's also set limits and boundaries for our good.

Well, moving on to Acts number two now, we look at chapter three through chapter five, and here we have the point, love without limits. So in God's design, limitations are there before marriage, but limitations are removed in marriage.

Now, don't go crazy and take that too far to say it's impossible for anything to be sinful. No, there's still perverted things that you can do in marriage. I'm not trying to say that, but I'm just making the point God's design is that in marriage, in love and romance, it's not just obligations and repopulation that God is concerned with.

But God desires for, in marriage, the relationship to be enjoyable, both for the men and the women, for it to be without limits in their relationship to one another, that you are able to enjoy the fullness of what God has given to you in your spouse. That's God's design. We can see that as we look at this section. We'll start here in chapter 3, and we'll begin in verse 6. It says, the Shulamite speaking, "'Who is this coming out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke?'

So now in this new scene...

You have the Shulamite looking out into the wilderness and she sees these pillars of smoke rising up in the wilderness. And the idea is there's somebody coming and they're kicking up dust. And so there's this column of smoke, this pillar of smoke or dust that is there. It's an indication that somebody is coming. And it's not just one person, but there's a big group. And so who is this that's coming?

What we see being described here is the wedding day for Solomon and his bride. Now, we know that partly because of the wedding customs of their day, very different than our day. In those days, they would become betrothed before getting married. And so the betrothal period was a serious engagement period that would usually last between one to two years.

And during this period, kind of the main purpose of this period was for the groom to prepare a place for him and his bride to live. And there's some really cool imagery when you factor in what Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you and I'm going to come back and bring you that you may be with me. That is all, you know, using the illustration, the analogy of their wedding customs. Right?

And so the groom would be preparing a place for him and his bride, whether they would add on to his father's house or build a separate house for him and his bride, just depended on the situation. But he would be doing that in preparation for their wedding. Now, here's the thing that's interesting about this. The groom would not get to know the day of his wedding. Only the groom's dad would know the day of the wedding.

Because the dad would be in charge of making sure that place that the groom was preparing was a good place for that bride that his son was going to bring home. And so his dad would come in and say, son,

you got to put some carpet in here. She can't live on the dirt. I mean, that's not good, son. You got to put some carpet and paint that wall. You can't just leave it like that. It's ugly the way it is. And you should, you know, spruce that up. And, you know, you could picture maybe what dads would say to their sons, right? You got to fix things up and ship things up and, you know, get them in shape. And yeah, make sure it's nice and make sure it's ready. And then when the dad said, all right, it's good. It's ready. Then he would say, okay, son, you can go get your bride.

In our wedding ceremonies, we have the bride's procession, right? It's kind of the big deal, the highlight of the ceremony. The bride shows up and walks down the aisle. In their days, it was the opposite. The groom would have the procession. He would basically lead a parade. There would be this entourage around him, and he would go, once his dad gave the okay, to go pick up his bride and bring her back to the place that he has prepared for them. And there would be the wedding ceremony and the feast that would follow for seven days.

And so that's what we see happening here. She looks out the window. She sees pillars of smoke. This is Solomon coming with his entourage. Verse 7 says, Solomon is on his way. The place is prepared. The wedding day is here. And he is coming to receive his bride and bring her back to this place that has been prepared. Verse 11 says,

So she says, go check him out. He's dressed snazzy. I mean, he is like, he's got this sweet crown on. He's got this sweet tux on. He's looking good. Yeah, celebrating this wedding day.

Now Solomon gets to see his bride here in chapter 4 as we move forward now. And he begins to describe her in verse 1. He says, Solomon here is describing his bride like,

on their wedding day. He sees her, he's taken aback, and he just, you know, blurts out these descriptions of her. And perhaps, guys, you kind of have that, you know, from your wedding day, you remember your bride, you know, she began to walk down that aisle and, oh, so beautiful and just overwhelmed by, you know, the day and the occasion. And that's kind of where Solomon is at at this time. Now, the way that he describes her here doesn't translate so well from

Hebrew to English, from their culture to our culture to our generation. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn sheep which have come up from the washing. Guys, if you want to melt your wife, I mean, she'll just fall in love with you. You can quote her some of these things and she'll just be so blown away. No, actually, you'll probably end up being fair with some mechanical and cosmetic defects, right? You'll

Start calling her these things. But for her, it was a lovely thing. It was a beautiful description as he recounts, you know, what she looked like on that day. Well, then in verses, well, chapter 4, verse 6, all the way through chapter 5, verse 1, we have a description of the wedding night. In verse 6, he says, until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, I will go my way to the mountain of Myrrh and to the hill of frankincense.

So here begins the wedding night, and he's describing here that occasion until day breaks. We're going to be all night together. We're going to spend the night together. He's referring to the consummation of the marriage. And as he does, he says in verse 7, Indicating that she is a pure, spotless bride. She is a virgin. And that's further expressed in verse 12, saying,

It says,

Here he describes this garden that has all these different fruits and smells, and it's just this lovely picture. But he's not talking about vegetation. He's talking about her virginity.

In those days, a garden would be enclosed. It was something that was enclosed for privacy and protection. And so as he talks about this in this way, he's talking about the fact that she has not known a man. And this is the way that God honors. Now, again, this is radically opposed to what the world presents to us and perhaps what we've been taught our whole lives is

But this is the way that God desires, that the sexual relationship be reserved for the marriage relationship. And again, every sexual relationship, every sexual experience is only approved by God within the bonds of marriage. And there is no sexual experience that is approved by God outside of the bonds of marriage.

But within the bonds of marriage, again, it's love without limits. There's a freedom for you to experience the fullness of your relationship with your spouse in the marriage bonds. In verse 16, you see her response. She says, "'Awake, O north wind, and come, O south. "'Blow upon my garden that its spices may flow out. "'Let my beloved come to his garden "'and eat its pleasant fruits.'"

There's a transition that takes place here in the things that she is saying. She is accepting this new relationship. She's receiving it. And there's a transfer of ownership here.

that takes place within this wedding ceremony and on this wedding night. Here's what Dave Guzik says about it. He says, this is the moment of yielded virginity where the beloved is invited to enjoy his previously protected and sealed sexuality of the maiden. A line before the maiden called it my garden. Now it was his garden. And see, there's a big change there.

Before it was her garden, which she was charged with protecting and preserving. But now they're married, and so now there's a transfer. Now it's not my garden anymore, but it's his garden. And so she says, come on into your garden. It's yours now. Come enjoy the fruits of your garden. Paul the Apostle says it similarly and with less poetry in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 4 says,

He says, the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise, the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Here's what happens in marriage. There is an exchange. There's a transfer of ownership that my body is no longer mine, but now it belongs to Kim. And Kim's body is no longer hers, but now it belongs to me. That's the transfer that takes place in marriage, right?

the authority has been transferred to the spouse that you are married to. It's no longer your garden. It's your spouse's garden. And their garden is now your garden. That's the way that God has designed it. Again, it's love without limits. There's that freedom to enjoy the garden that has been given to you in your spouse.

And so Paul goes on in 1 Corinthians 7, verse 5, to elaborate further. He says, So don't shut up the garden, except when you're both in agreement on it, and just for a short season of prayer and fasting. So as long as you can fast from food, you can keep the garden closed. But

There's a danger there, opening yourselves up to temptations and attacks of the enemy if you close up the garden because, well, first of all, it's not yours. You've transferred the ownership. And then secondly, that's part of God's design for the marriage relationship, that there needs to be love without limits in a marriage relationship. That is the way that God has designed it.

Well, moving on to chapter 5 now, verse 1, the beloved says, I have come to my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh and my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with my milk. And then he says to his friends, eat, oh friends, drink. Yes, drink deeply, oh beloved ones. They've consummated the marriage. He's enjoyed the fruits of his garden.

And the first thing he does is go and tell his friends. He posted on Facebook, hey guys, guess what just happened? Now, this would be a little bit awkward in our culture and society, right? But in those days, here was the wedding customs. Remember I told you the guy would go get the girl and bring her back. They would have the wedding ceremony. They would immediately have the consummation of the marriage. And all the people attending the wedding would be waiting for this word.

Because then they could start the feast. Because then they could really celebrate. That would begin the seven days of celebration. So, you know, you're kind of just sitting at the reception table looking at each other awkwardly like... They're taking a long time. That could be good. Or it could be they don't know what they're doing and it's not going so well.

So he comes out and he says, hey guys, feast. I feasted. It's time for you guys to feast and celebrate this great occasion. It's their wedding day. And that ends act two, the wedding of Solomon with his bride. Love without limits. That's the way that God has designed it. And just one final verse to reinforce that and just establish this is God's truth. This is the way that God has designed it. Hebrews chapter 13, verse four says,

Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. So here's clearly, in plain English, no poetry, there is to be limits outside of marriage. Fornicators and adulterers God will judge, and sexual experiences are not for those kinds of relationships. And there is a judgment, there is...

Not just judgment from God, but there is the consequences for that behavior that is not good. And that's why God says, don't do it. But then within marriage, it's honorable. And the bed is undefiled. There's a freedom.

Again, not to say that it's impossible to be perverted. I'm not saying that. There is. It's not that there's no opportunity for sin, but just generally saying, enjoy one another as husband and wife. That's God's design. Love without limits. It's what's best for us. Well, moving on to the final act here in chapter five, all the way through chapter eight, we get point number three, and that is to love in spite of limits.

Love in spite of limits. Now as we enter into these last few chapters, Solomon and his bride, they're now married. But what we see unfold in this next scene is the aftermath of some type of conflict that they have experienced. And for those who are married, you know there's conflict in marriage.

For those who are not married, sometimes you, you know, think and dream and have this fantasy that everything's always awesome in marriage and there's no conflicts. Or maybe, you know, those old grumpy people, they fight. But, you know, me and my guy, you know, we'll never fight. No, there's always going to be conflict in marriage because we are limited. You and I are limited by our sinful nature.

We're limited by our fallen nature. We will always fall short. Even if I try my hardest, I will always fall short at some point, even when I try my hardest. And the sad thing is I don't always try my hardest. And so then conflict is guaranteed that I'm gonna fall short and there's going to be some type of letdown. There's gonna be some type of selfishness. There's gonna be some type of conflict that happens in the marriage, right?

Now, what you need to understand is that also is part of God's design. That's okay. Some people fight in their marriage and they think, oh, something must be horribly wrong. No, no, that's part of God's plan. You're going to fight in your marriage. That's part of the deal. And what God wants you to learn to do is to love each other in spite of your limits.

Love each other in spite of their sinful nature, in spite of the selfishness, in spite of the ways that they fall short and let you down and hurt you. To love each other and to let love overcome those hurts and those heartaches and those letdowns, that's part of God's plan for you. That's part of God's design in our marriages and in our relationships. And so we need to learn to love God.

In spite of those limits and in spite of those things and to learn to recover after the conflict because we're going to have conflict, that's guaranteed. But we need to learn to recover and to reconcile and get back together with our spouse. And that's what we get to see a little snapshot of here beginning in chapter 5.

We'll look at verse 2. The Shulamite is speaking and she says, I sleep, but my heart is awake. It is the voice of my beloved. He knocks saying, open for me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one. For my head is covered with dew, my locks with the drops of the night.

And so here the Shulamite is again in some type of dream. She's asleep, but her heart's awake. She's in this dream state, and in this dream she is there, and he is outside of the room, and he's knocking. Let me in. She's not quite ready. Now you can tell it's a conflict right away because here he says, open for me, my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one. When you start, you know, thinking all the

The good things you can say, all the good names you can call your spouse, you know, all those, then, you know, something's a little bit off, right? There's a little bit, oh, I'm so sorry, my love. I love you so much. I love you. I love you. I love you. You know, like that kind of thing. And so he's outside in this dream and he's calling out to her and just, you know,

Trying to reconcile, trying to make things right, trying to get back together. Again, describing the aftermath of this fight that they have. Open up, I love you. I'm uncomfortable out here and my hair's wet and it's not good. Let me in. And there's this desire to reconcile that's being expressed.

But she's not quite ready. And then in verse 6, it says, I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and was gone. My heart leaped up when he spoke. I sought him, but I could not find him. I called him, but he gave me no answer. And so she hears him calling out. She hears him knocking. She doesn't respond right away. And then when she gets up and she opens the door, he's gone. This is a really accurate picture of conflict in marriage many times, isn't it?

She desires to be reconciled. He desires to be reconciled, but their timing is off. She yearns for him, but when she opens the door, he's not there. And so she says, I'm lovesick. Again, part of her dream here, she's imagining or she's maybe reliving some of these experiences that they have had.

Pastor Dave Guzik says it this way. He says, here the writer gave us an emotionally accurate picture of the dynamic of conflict in a relationship, especially in marriage. And so many times there's one who's ready to resolve the conflict, knocking on the door saying, I love you. I'm really sorry. Please let me in. I want to make things right. I want to get back together. Let's work these things out. And the other one's not ready saying, the door's closed. I'm not ready to deal with this yet. I can't handle this right now. And then...

The one who was like, hey, I'm not ready yet. Now she's ready. Okay, let's get back together. But when she opens the door, he's gone. He's given up already. It's like, I guess we're not going to resolve this. That happens so many times in relationships. The timing is off. And we need to learn to work through those timing issues. It always requires death to self and humility. And I don't have time to get into all that, but

But we gotta learn to work out those conflicts and to come back together and to let our love for one another overcome those faults that originally started the conflict and the faults in the timing that comes afterwards. Well, in verse nine, we have the daughters of Jerusalem speaking and they say, "'What is your beloved more than another beloved, "'oh fairest among women?'

What is your beloved more than another beloved that you so charge us? So in this dream, they're still separated. They're still kind of not together. And she's looking. And so the daughters of Jerusalem say, why are you working so hard for this guy? What's so special about him? And so in the following verses, verse 10 through 16, she describes...

her husband. And it's kind of similar to his description of her earlier. In verse 10, she says, And she goes on to describe him. Now,

The description that she gives is interesting because it seems it's more transferable to today than the description of the woman that Solomon gave. A woman would be offended if you told her some of the things that Solomon said, but Kim describes me these ways all the time, and I just love it. In verse 14, Kim says to me, his hands are rods of gold set with barrel. His body is carved with ivory. Wow.

She tells me that almost every day. Inlaid with sapphires. I mean, just carved with jello. No, I mean, carved with ivory. But so she's, again, expressing this love. Even in the midst of the conflict, there's a love. There's an attraction. There's a desire. Here's why my guy is so great.

And so there's that desire that we need to work things out. We need to reconcile. We need to set things straight and get things right. Moving on to chapter six now, we begin to see the reconciliation after the conflict. In verse two, she says, my beloved has gone to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed his flock in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He feeds his flock among the lilies. They begin to sort things out.

Seems like they're still separated at this time. They're still in different locations, but there's a confidence in their relationship. He's over there, but I'm my beloved's and he is mine. We haven't had a chance yet to really, you know, resolve everything, but we're together in the garden of love.

He's my beloved. And Solomon responds in verses four through seven by once again describing her beauty. Her hair's like a flock of goats, her teeth like sheep, and all of those similar descriptions to what we saw earlier. But now the reconciliation happens in chapter seven. In verse six, Solomon says, "'How fair and how pleasant you are, "'oh love, with your delights.'"

This stature of yours is like a palm tree and your breasts like its clusters. I said, I will go up to the palm tree. I will take hold of its branches. Let now your breasts be like clusters of the vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples and the roof of your mouth like the best wine. And then she responds, the wine goes down smoothly for my beloved, moving gently the lips of sleepers.

Here, Solomon is clearly describing his desire for physical intimacy with his bride. And this is the time of reconciliation. They're getting back together after a conflict, after some type of issue that they had to resolve. It's by God's design that

that we overcome those conflicts in our relationships. It's part of what God desires for us. And God wants us to grow, to be able to be together again, even physically and intimately, after those things are worked through and resolved. Amen.

And as we do, here we have another, you know, picture of the importance of sex within marriage and the importance of the enjoyment for both the man and the woman. In verse 10, she says, I am my beloved's and his desire is toward me. The language there that she is using is describing this is enjoyable for her. He's expressing it's enjoyable for him. This is something they're doing together with each other.

again, within marriage, it's love without limits and it's enjoyable for both of them. It's to be enjoyed by both the husband and the wife, each giving themselves to the other. There's a commentator by the name of Glickman who puts it this way. He says, whereas the wedding night focused on the purpose of sex as the consummation of marriage, this night focuses on the purpose of sex as the nourishment of marriage. As they fell asleep, the last kiss lingered in each other's minds like the aftertaste of

of a good wine. Here they are reconciled. They're enjoying one another again. They're enjoying their relationship together. This is part of God's design. That we don't just love each other in the good times. That we don't just love each other when it's easy, but that we even overcome great difficulties. That we overcome even great conflicts in our marriage. And that we are reunited on all levels.

Not just in our commitment to like not get divorced, but in our commitment to love one another and our commitment to be together and to give ourselves to one another. Again, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, your body doesn't belong to you and theirs doesn't belong to them. And you shouldn't deprive each other except for short times for prayer and fasting and with each other's consent. And other than that, you are to be engaged.

in this kind of relationship. You're to be engaged in intimacy. It's part of what God desires. It's good for you. It's part of God's design for you. It's what's best for you. Now, that's between you and your spouse as far as, you know, I'm not going to get into the details. I'm not prescribing a certain amount of times a week or anything like that. But you are to have that freedom and you're to learn to grow beyond those conflicts and those issues that you have.

and to love one another in spite of the limitations and the shortfalls that you have. Well, chapter eight kind of sums up things and kind of concludes a variety of things. I'm just going to hit a couple thoughts here in chapter eight before we finish up. Verse one, she says, Oh, that you were like my brother who nursed at my mother's breasts. If I should find you outside, I would kiss you. I would not be despised.

Now, if you're reading along, you're thinking, wow, that last kiss, it's so memorable. And then she says, oh, if you were like my brother who nursed in my mom's breasts. I kind of picture in my mind the scratching sound, like the music coming to a halt, like, you know, like, wait, what the heck is she talking about here? Like, what in the world? This sounds really weird and out of place to us. But again, considering their culture, husbands and wives in their culture would not show affection publicly, right?

but brothers and sisters could. And so here's what she's saying. I love him so much. I want to show him affection all the time, but in public, I have to restrain myself.

And so, you know, in public, if it was my brother, I could just be leaning on him, my head on his shoulder, my arm around him. I could be, you know, cuddling him or hanging on him or embracing him. And I could be doing that all the time. If it was my brother, that's normal. That's accepted culturally. But it wasn't accepted for a husband and wife to behave that way. And so that's what she's expressing here. That's why she says at the end of verse one, I would not be despised. Because she could show that kind of affection and not be despised, but

if they were brother and sister, but she's not actually wishing that he was her brother, but just that she could show that kind of affection.

Verse three, she says to the daughters of Jerusalem, his left hand is under my head and his right hand embraces me. I charge you, daughters of Jerusalem, do not stir up nor awaken love until it pleases. So she goes on now to kind of give some cautionary statements to the daughters of Jerusalem. And she says, this is great. I love it. I wish I could hug him and kiss him all the time. But those of you who aren't married, she says, don't try to rush this. Don't try to force this.

She describes her embrace. It's so wonderful. It's nice. We have this desire to love and be loved. And so we have a tendency to think, well, just go hug somebody and kiss somebody and then that's love.

someone goes out and hugs and kisses and says all right I'm in love and sex is referred to as making love but that's not love and so that's what she's saying is you want love you want to be loved but you can't create love by these embraces and by this kind of thing those are expressions of love within a marriage relationship and that's where it's appropriate so love with limits for those who are not yet married

And then love without limits and love in spite of limits expressed in verse 6. She says to her beloved, So set me as a seal. This is permanent. It's a lifelong commitment and covenant.

Set me as a seal upon your heart and be faithful to me. Don't be going outside of the marriage. Jealousy is as cruel as the grave. And so even though I might upset you sometimes, that's no excuse for you to run to other ladies, that you are to love me for the rest of your life in spite of my limits, in spite of my failures. And so we're going to enjoy our marriage relationship and

Keep it limited to that. And so here we have God's model for love and romance. Before marriage, there's love, there's romance, there's desire, but there needs to be limits. According to what God has declared, it's what's best for us. Within marriage, there's no limits.

Again, not to take that too extreme and, you know, do perverted things, but just, you know, for the enjoyment of the husband and wife, there is to be that type of romance and intimacy and love expressed between one another. And then even when there's conflict, we need to love in spite of limits and overcome those things, learn how to love each other in spite of those things, and learn how to continue to give ourselves to one another in our marriage relationship. And that's God's model for love and romance. Very different from

than what the world presents to us. And so we need to know God's standard so that we can live it, but also so that we can share it. Let's pray. Lord, thank you for your word. Thank you for setting the record straight, Lord, because we are told many different things by the world around us. But Lord, your ways are best.

And so I pray that you would help us to grasp hold of these truths, to believe them, to live according to them, Lord, that we might experience the best that you have for us and the fullness of life that you desire to give to us. And so I pray for each of us, Lord, in our different positions and states in life, Lord, that you would keep us, Lord, a

according to the design that you've established, Lord, that we would live according to your word, love according to your word, and obey, Lord, the things that you have declared for us. And so, Lord, take us forward in our relationships or without relationships, wherever we are, Lord, that you would be our God and that you would be first and foremost in our lives. I pray that in Jesus' name, amen.

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