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.
