All right, you can open your
Bibles to Song of Solomon, Chapter 4. Song of Songs, Song of Solomon,
Canticles, this book has a lot of names. Our Father, bless our gathering
this morning, and may we see Christ and see what he has done
for us, how he views us, and rejoice in the knowledge of it.
In the name of Christ, we pray. Amen. All right, let's read the
first seven verses. How beautiful you are, my darling.
Oh, how beautiful. Your eyes behind your veil are
doves. Your hair is like a flock of
goats descending from Mount Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of
sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing. Each has its twin. Not one of them is alone. Your
lips are like a scarlet ribbon. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples
behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. Your
neck is like the Tower of David, built with elegance. On it hang
a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. Your two
breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that
browse among the lilies. Until the day breaks and the
shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the
hill of incense. All beautiful you are, my darling."
Now, the entirety of the significance or meaning of this particular
passage is summarized in the first and last verses. And actually the first half of
the first verse and then the last verse, and if you just read
them together, you get the message. How beautiful you are, my darling.
Oh, how beautiful, all beautiful you are, my darling. There is
no flaw in you. Now, of course, this is the idealized
Solomon describing the idealized Shulamith. the woman who has
the same name as Solomon, just a feminine version of it. And
while they are likely historical characters, they certainly are
described here in an idealized way. And that's what poetry does. And particularly when you're
speaking effusively about your love, You describe the person
you love, and you don't say, well, your eyes are beautiful,
except that everything is described in terms of beauty. But now this
is done in order to teach us how our Lord Jesus perceives
us, us as individuals, and then us as the singular body of Jesus
Christ. Solomon is describing Shulamith.
Solomon is representative of the Lord Jesus Christ, our King
of Peace. And Shulamith, we are the people
of peace. The church is at peace with itself. The church, when
we say it's at peace with the world, she does not cause or
go out with the intention of causing a warfare. She's not
trying to, you know, we're not political. The individuals may
be political, but the church is a body. We're not out there
trying to grab political power, we're not trying to make political
will bend to us. Paul even taught us to pray for
those in power, and that's as far as it goes, pray for those
in power. What? That we might live our lives
in peace and quietness. So we are a people of peace. He is the king of peace. And
when our Lord Jesus Christ looks at us, regardless of what our
character is, regardless of what our conduct has been, his estimation
of us is that we are beautiful, remarkably beautiful, altogether
beautiful. We have no flaw. You say, he
needs glasses. Or he must be looking at us from
a long distance. No, he's looking at us with love
goggles. You know, I've seen a lot of
jokes made, you know, about the effect of alcohol on the attractiveness
of people of the opposite sex. And, you know, I saw one guy
had a t-shirt on, said, drink till she's pretty, you know. And then I've heard reference,
beer goggles. And, you know, the idea is you
drink enough and you're not as picky as you once were. Well,
love does the same thing. The Scriptures say love covers
a multitude of sins. Now, this does not mean that
our Lord ignores our sinfulness. He didn't ignore it. He took
our sinfulness upon Himself, and He bore that sin. So He knows
our sin even better than we know it. But He perceives us with
the eye of love, and not only that, with the eye of love that
moved him to do something about our sin, and he sees us as those
whose sins have been washed clean, who have already been conformed
to his image. That's why we have the same name. Solomon, which was really Sholomane
or something like that, and Sholomith. Now this is, on the one hand,
an amazing thing to think. On the other hand, you also gotta
say, but it can't be any other way. For he is not just our savior,
he is our God. He is not just the savior of
his people, he's also the judge of all the earth. And he's just
and righteous, and if he did see any fault in us, what would
he do? He would have to deal with it
in justice. So by his own sacrifice, he put
away everything unattractive about us. And while we still
see it, he does not perceive it. We know it. He doesn't pay attention to it. In fact, in that description
of the old, excuse me, the new covenant given in the book of
Jeremiah, where he says, I'll make a new covenant with them.
To me, the most remarkable aspect of that new covenant is
there, for I will forgive their sins and her iniquities, I will
remember no more. Now, that doesn't mean we'll
not remember as though out of mind. God is aware of everything. But the word remember means,
you know, also has the sense of bringing to mind or bringing
it up. There was a song that was, it's
an old folk song, but a very popular singing duo,
Simon and Garfunkel, revived it and Scarborough Fair. And one of the lines is, remember
me to one who lives there. What do you mean, remember me?
Remind that person, bring me up. And so when it says our sins,
he will remember no more. He's not going to bring them
up. I was raised in a religion. I remember them telling me this,
and I was talking to my sister not long ago on the phone, and
she was bringing this to mind. She claims to be a believer,
but she's still terrified about the day of death or the day of
judgment. She says, because they're going to play my life on a movie
screen for everybody to see. I know exactly where she got
that because I heard him say it too. The whole reason they
said it was to make us terrified that we'll be found out and we
don't want to be embarrassed up there, so appeal to our self-righteousness
to make us act good. I said, well, if he plays our
lives up there, It's going to be an X-rated film. And that
church said we shouldn't go to movies anyway. So God's not going
to bring it up. Why would he? He dealt with it
in Christ. And when a thing is dealt with,
it's dealt with. What profit would there be to
God or to us for him to shame us in front of all our brothers
and sisters, showing them the things about us that they didn't
know. No, God is not like your next
door gossipy neighbor. God knows your sin. He's fully
aware of it. He's dealt with it in Christ.
And therefore, when he sees us, he sees no fault. Now, In between the first and seventh
verses are, well actually it's the first through the fifth,
there are details of this woman's beauty that the man brings up.
Now, if any of these particulars of her beauty are supposed to
represent any particular grace of the church, any of the gifts
that he's given to her or, you know, whatever, well, we can't
know. Because there's no scriptures
to which we can go specifically and say, okay, this is the anti-type. You know, these descriptions
are the type of the church. Here, over, we look in the New
Testament, we see descriptions of the church, and this aspect
of the church corresponds to this particular point of the
description of this woman. We can't do that because there
is no scripture authorizing that, in a sense, and nothing in the
New Testament, necessarily, that would bring us to any definitive
conclusion. We can speculate, but we cannot
be dogmatic. Now having said all of that,
we also realize that the very purpose of scriptures like this
is not to teach us doctrine, but to illustrate doctrine for
us. That's why we don't get our doctrine
from the Song of Solomon. We are simply looking at it and
seeing the doctrine that's taught for us in the more, they call
them didactic scriptures, that's the one that directly teaches
things. And so, particularly in the New
Testament and particularly in the letters of Paul, we have
very instructive language, just telling us directly how things
are. Song of Solomon never mentions God directly,
So it's all an illustration of truth. Therefore, if we can find
any parallels between the way the woman is described and the
way the church is described, it is suitable to use it. We
wouldn't look at any of these descriptions and try to discover
something about the church. Rather, we would look at them
simply as illustrations So we'll bring up a few things here. It
may be profitable for us, and to whatever degree it's profitable,
we'll use it. To whatever degree it doesn't
bring us any benefit, we'll just leave it be. He says, your eyes
behind your veil, this is the last half of verse one, your
eyes behind your veil are doves. Your hair is like a flock of
goats descending from Mount Gilead. Now, eyes are called the windows
of the soul. And it's true that there is an
intimacy in looking someone in the eyes. So much so, we normally
don't do that. That is, we don't stare right
into someone else's eyes unless we are very close. We may look
and then we'll look away a little bit and whatnot. But generally
speaking, we only look into the eyes of someone we know very
well. And the better we know them,
the more comfortable we feel with eye-to-eye contact. But
also, so intimate is eye-to-eye contact like that, it can be
uncomfortable. If you come up to someone, and
there are people like that, and they just stare at you right
in the eyes, you'll look away because you don't want that connection.
That's too intimate. And so when it speaks here of
the eyes of the church being like doves, it's speaking of
the way she looks at the Lord Jesus Christ. Now it says, your
eyes behind your veil. So it must have been the kind
of veil that you could see through some. I don't know what the rules
were for this time because God had made some rules about how
a person is to dress and things like that for the Jews. But details change with culture. But evidently, She had on a veil
that she could see through, but it was not easy. It obscured
anyone else from seeing her eyes. And he says, they are doves. Of course, we've noted before
that doves are a symbol of peace. They are a symbol of gentle love. The sound that doves make is
very soothing. But when the church looks at
the Lord Jesus Christ, and obviously they are looking at one another
eye to eye. There may be that veil, but nonetheless,
it's eye to eye. Love is being expressed in her
eyes toward him. And the church loves the Lord
Jesus Christ. You know, doctrine is an important
issue, and we don't ever want to belittle it. But one of the
things about doctrine, when we approach it as though it has
value in and of itself, is we become very combative with it.
We become self-righteous because we think we believe the truth
and others do not. And all you have to do is go
in a onto some of the social media where somebody is trying
to promote a particular kind of doctrine. And it's amazing
how mean they talk to one another. And these are supposed to be
Christians. You know? Well, no, they may not be as
bad as some of the political stuff, you know, when they get
into it. Usually there's not any profanity or anything like
that. But they'll call each other idiot, You'll say, well, your
doctrine's demonic. And they think that that somehow
or another is an argument. It's not an argument. That's just
a statement. You're an idiot. Well, the church is known by this. She loves the Lord Jesus Christ. So much is this true that Paul
says, if any man does not love the Lord Jesus, there's a curse
on him. If you don't love Christ, you're
lost. It's that simple. I think there was a... I may
be getting the lyrics wrong, but you can say this. Well, actually
the lyrics to that was a pop song from the early 60s. To know,
know, know Him is to love, love, love Him. And that was, like
I said, one of those female pop groups from the early 60s. But
that's true. At least she thought that about
her boyfriend. And the church feels that way
about Christ. If you knew Him, you would love
Him. The world doesn't know Him. The
world primarily sees him as someone who would restrict them. And
I guess that's because so many that bear his name are always
foisting rules upon other people. But the Lord Jesus Christ is
a man of freedom. He sets people free. He's the
one that brings rest. He is the one who has eyes full
of love, and at the same time, eyes that are fierce with wrath
against anyone who would touch the one he loves. Now, traditionally
speaking, men protect women, at least when physical strength
is at issue in the protection, because men, in general, are
stronger than women. It's always been that way until
the rise of technology. certain weapons which pretty
much erase the advantage of strength. But nonetheless, a man with a
look, even a wild look of wrath towards someone, that look may
be based on love. Because he's looking at wrath
on that person because that person became a danger to one he loves.
My mother was one of the sweetest people you'd ever want to run
into. But you better not touch one of her children. You know,
if you were good with me, you were good with mom. It was pretty
much that way. If you caused me trouble, or
one of my sisters trouble, my mother, who was as gentle as
could be, was, as they say, became a she-bear, protecting her cubs. And so the Lord Jesus Christ
has a fierce look about him, but it's towards the enemy of
his people. And therefore, it is a look prompted
by love. And her eyes look lovingly upon
him. He says, your hair is like a
flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead. Obviously, she
had a full head of hair. And given the area she's from,
it was probably wavy. So you can imagine a bunch of
black goats coming down a hill, a whole flock of them, undulating.
That's what it reminded him of. And really all of the things
that he mentions here are signals of youth and symmetry. When you look at these things,
he's describing her beauty in terms of youth and symmetry. Now, in our age, you know, when
you're never supposed to say anything that might hurt anybody
a little bit, you know, you've got to act like there isn't any
difference among people as to whether they're pretty. I've
seen pictures come across Facebook, and they'll show someone who
has some kind of deformity, and they're actually disfigured.
And they say, oh, isn't she beautiful? I know what they mean. But beauty
does have a meaning, and it's using the objective concepts
of beauty here to describe the church. It's not these subjective
things where you say, you know, well, it's a beautiful person.
I realize that's more important if you want to metaphorically
speak of a person's beautiful inward character. But there are
a couple of things that we could say objectively tend more towards
what we would call beauty. And one of them is youth. You
know, I look in the mirror and I thought, what happened to that
guy? I never figured I was, you know, the kind of fellow that
would be a lead in a movie or something. But, you know, I looked
better at 20 than I do now. I don't deny it, you know. And
another thing in objective beauty is symmetry. I mean, they've
scientifically studied this. Why is it that there are some
people who virtually everyone would recognize them as beautiful? And a lot of it has to do with
symmetry. I don't know if you've ever seen those pictures where
they take a picture of someone and they split it right down
the middle, then do a reverse image, you know, and make someone
look entirely like their left side and then another one looks
entirely like their right side. And they're almost, with most
people, they're almost unrecognizable as the same person. Because each
of your eyes will be slightly different. You know, when I smile,
You know, one side will go up before the other one does. And
even when I'm in full smile, one side's higher than the other.
And so if, you know, if you made both sides look like my right
side, I'd look goofier than I do with, you know, two different
ones. And because I've seen that kind of thing. Symmetry is something
that's considered naturally beautiful. And so what does he say here?
Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn coming up from
the washing. Well, you know, sheep get nasty
and dirty like all other animals do. But when they're shorn, you
know, you get all the dirty wool off of them, and then they come
up out of the washing, you know, well, they're a pinkish white.
But the idea is here, it said, your teeth are really nice and
white. And then this almost tickles me, because we don't consider
this such an important issue in our day with the dental care
that we have. But it says, each has its twin. Not one of them
is alone. What are you saying? You've got
all your teeth. There's some people, the teeth
they have look just fine, but there's some gaps here and there.
So there's a completeness here and a symmetry to her teeth. Said, now your lips are like
a scarlet ribbon. Your mouth is lovely. Now, it
could be she put on some kind of lipstick, but I think he's
talking about her. And in youth, you, generally speaking, have
more color to you. So here's the youth being brought
up, and says, like a scarlet ribbon, if the mouth is seen
as the organ of communication, then what is it that this represents
in the church, but that her message to the world is the blood of
Christ? And to our Lord, that is beautiful. We are pleasing to our Lord in
a subjective sense of the word, when we are making him known,
when we are telling others about him and the sacrifice which he
made in behalf of his people. Your temples behind your veil
are like the halves of a pomegranate." Now, I don't know why temples would be considered
a particular point of attractiveness. But here's what we do see about
him. It's like halves of a pomegranate. Again, the symmetry is being
pointed out here, an objective aspect of beauty. Your neck is
like the Tower of David, built with elegance. On it hang 1,000
shields, all of them shields of warriors. Now, I suppose he
described the neck in this way, because what other part of the
body could you treat like a tower or compare to a tower? But there
is a couple of things here that can be noted. She obviously has,
even though she is not royal born, she has a regal bearing
about her. She doesn't go around like this,
and the church shouldn't. We don't go around boasting in
ourselves, but we are the bride of the king. And while the world
may have contempt for us and mock us, still, we walk through
the world head held high because of who God has made us to be,
his bride. But not only this, the Tower
of David was actually a military thing. It was probably a part
of the palace. And guards would be there. And
of course, when you're a guard, you can see, or up in a tower,
you can see much farther away. And therefore, they were able
to see enemies approaching. But when it talks about the shields
hung on the tower, when I first read it, I thought, oh, that
must be, you know, memorials to great warriors in Israel. And then, as I was doing some
study, I found out, evidently, that's not what it is. These
are the shields of conquered men. Notice it says here, on
it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. Now the world, or excuse me,
the church walks through this world and the world thinks we're
failures, and by the world standards we are, and they believe, you
know, I can't believe that after generations of people saying
this, there's still people saying this. Oh, you give it 100 years,
there won't be any religion. People will be over that. That's
just a superstition. We're going to grow in civilization and culture
enough, we'll put all that stuff aside. No. There will be religions that
come and go. But the religion of Jesus Christ has been around
since the world was created. And despite all the assaults
against it, it's still here. And the shields of her warriors
are on nobody's tower, but many an enemy of the Lord Jesus Christ.
They were mighty warriors in the world, took their stand against
Christ, and now their shields are hung upon this tower of David. Your two breasts are like two
fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies.
I read one commentator, And they were saying, this is the Old
and New Testament. There wasn't any Old and New Testament when
they wrote this. And also, the Bible itself does not recognize
Old and New Testament. That is something that men put
on it. God inspired one book, not two. And what we call the
New Testament is just what's been going on since the beginning.
God continuing his revelation until it's finished. All that's
being spoken of here, again, is that symmetry. And as we pointed
out in one of our earlier lessons, that a woman's breasts, as they're
presented here in the Song of Solomon, are not just a matter
of sexual desire on the part of men. But rather, they are
emblems of all womanly affections. Because, again, a child is born. And at least until they invented
baby bottles and things like that, the first thing they did
with that child, the mother would take it and put the child to
her breast. Why? And I mean, and that even does
form a stronger psychological bond of love between the infant
and the mother. And when children are hurt, they
rarely run to dad. You know, because dad won't do
anything for them. I say, oh, you'll get over it. You go to
mom, and what does she do with little kids? She holds them close.
You go to a family reunion, and if you're 12 years old and a
boy, it's so embarrassing because your aunt will come up and like
that, you know. But that's just what they represent. And here we have them being represented
in their perfect symmetry, perfect love. And then he says, until the day
breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of
myrrh and to the hill of incense. Now, daybreak, that's really
not what the word means. Daybreak to us is morning. It
says until the day cools and the shadows flee. Actually, when
the sun comes up, that's when the shadows appear. When the
sun goes down is when the shadows disappear. And that's when the
cool of the day is. It corresponds to what is written
in the book of Genesis when it says that the Lord came into
the garden of Eden after Adam and Eve had sinned. And it said,
in the cool of the evening, or the breeze of the evening, the
voice of the Lord God was heard walking in the garden. And that's
what's being referenced here. That is, that cool of the day.
He says, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense. The meaning is, I will get me
to that, the mountain of myrrh. I'll spend all day, this is our
Lord saying, I will spend all day getting to the mountain of myrrh
and the hill of incense. Some believe this is a reference
to Mount Moriah on which the temple was set, where you would
find the incense and the fragrances and the spices that were used
in the various sacrifices and other religious observances there.
But I think that while it may have some sideways reference
to that, the point is, he says, I'll take all day. And I won't
stop getting myself somewhere until I've gotten to her. Now, when I go on a trip, when
I leave on a trip by myself, I don't make a hurry
of getting there. In fact, sometimes I'll leave
a day early just so I can take a leisurely drive. I'll stay
off the interstates if I can and enjoy the sights and all that.
But after I've been gone a while and it's time to come home, I
wake up and it's interstate all the way that I can, fudging the speed limit. Why? I'm getting home to Bonnie. And
I will keep going till I get there. I have rarely stopped
overnight coming home, unless it was just absolutely necessary.
And I believe that's what he's speaking here. I am giving my
full self all day long to get to her. And think of that in
regard to the Lord Jesus Christ in us. That he is as passionate
in his pursuit of us and wanting to be with us as we are of him,
yea more. All beautiful you are, my darling. There is no flaw in you. Rest easy with that thought.
You're dismissed.