Gracious Father, bless us, grant
us the ability to read the scriptures and understand them. We're reminded of what the Ethiopian
eunuch said to Philip, how can I understand unless someone explains
it to me? And we know, Lord, that the great
explainer is the Holy Spirit. for he takes from what is Christ's
and shows it to us. And our Father, we are convinced
that this scripture, as well as all other scriptures, are
about Christ. So we ask that you'd send your
spirit to us to take the things of Christ contained in this scripture
and show them to us. And it's in his name we pray
it, amen. Now, this is the fourth lesson
we've had that comes under the title of Mutual Admiration Society,
because starting back in verse 9, there's this back and forth
between Solomon and the Shulamite. And last week we got through
verse 14, So let's look now at verse 15.
How beautiful you are, my darling. Oh, how beautiful your eyes are
doves. Now, these are the words of Solomon
to the Shulamite. And what it does is show us how
fully enamored Solomon is of this woman. Now, let me remind
you that this is not a historical book. That is, There is no reason within the
book for us to believe that this refers to any single romantic
relationship that Solomon may have had. After all, he had 700
wives and 300 concubines. The Shulamite is never identified
by anything other than that name, the Shulamite, which is essentially
the feminine version of the name Solomon. And even the Solomon
contained in this book is an idealized version of Solomon. It references the historical
Solomon, but really, nobody's this good. And so we're not looking
at this as though it's a historical thing. So when I say Solomon
and the Shulamite, I'm talking about them as characters in this
poetic drama. But Solomon is completely enamored
of this Shulamite. He does not merely tell her she
is beautiful, as a matter of fact, nor is it simply to assuage
any doubts on her part that he finds her beautiful. Notice the
wording here. How beautiful you are, my darling. Oh, how beautiful. Now, you don't
say, oh, unless what you're describing is just a natural, almost undeniable
expression of your feelings. We sing that Christmas carol,
Oh, Come Let Us Adore Him. Now that's not a mere suggestion.
That's something that, you know, the writer of those words feels
compelled that we must do, come and adore. And so Solomon here,
he says, how beautiful you are, my darling. He calls her by that
affectionate term, but he said, I believe that in
the Hebrew, when it says, how beautiful, again, it's got that
word, oh, he repeats himself twice. Now think of that. He's
not satisfied with saying it once. He is so stricken with
her beauty that he cannot hold his expressions of it in. And
so he says, oh how beautiful you are, my darling, my love,
oh how beautiful, your eyes are doves. Now in this particular
expression of his infatuation with her, Solomon refers only
to her eyes, calling them doves. As we've already seen, there's
lots of comparisons. to things in the natural world. As they describe one another
and how beautiful they are, I think earlier he said, you're like
a mare in Pharaoh's court and this and that, and he now says
her eyes are doves. Now, the fact that Solomon chooses
only her eyes in this particular expression of his passion for
her leads one to believe that he was swept away by the way
she looked at him. Now look over here at, I hope
I've got the right verse in my memory here. Yeah, Song of Songs,
chapter four, verse nine. Now, this is Solomon speaking
again. You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride. You have
stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel
of your necklace. You know, a woman can be stunningly
beautiful, yet not be attractive to another man or another specific
man simply because of the way she looks at him. And it's often
said that the eyes are the windows of the soul, and it's true. You
can learn a lot about what's going on in someone's mind by
looking at their eyes. And this is especially true when
two people are looking one another in the eyes. In fact, I don't
know how it is with other people. I only know what my practices
are. When I'm talking to someone, I don't just stare them in the
eyes. That's unsettling to most people. You may look for a little
bit, and you look away a little bit, you don't come back, and
it's just eye-to-eye contact is a rather intimate form of
communication. And so we don't engage in a lot
of it. You know that phrase, she caught
his eye. What that normally means is he
saw her looking at him and that caught his eye. She gained his
attention by the way she looked at him. Now the King James Version
says the woman has dove's eyes. But the eyes of a dove are, so
far as I know, no different than the eyes of any other bird. And
we would not expect that he would flatter her with saying, your
eyes, you have crow's eyes. That probably wouldn't gain any
affectionate return from her. So it's not the eyes of a dove
that are being spoken of. It's the dove itself. And what
is it about a dove that he would find so attractive in the way
she looked at him. Well, in doves, among the birds,
there is a tenderness and softness to their deportment, and that
attracts most people. There's a calming effect in their
cooing. We have some morning doves that
come back to our, I assume it's the same ones, every year. I
guess it's been so many years there's had to be a change of
doves somewhere along the line. But for the longest time I always
wondered why they call them morning doves because I see them in the
afternoon and the evening as well. Then I realized it's morning
because the sound of it, that sounds like they're mourning
about something. But it's a comforting kind of
sound, a soft, not brash, Not like the clash of symbols. And
so, also doves are about as harmless
and defenseless as a bird can be. They are vulnerable to any
predator that may find them. So we are brought into Solomon's
perception of the beauty of the Shulamite as he looks at her
looking at him. And he sees, as it were, the
character of tenderness and vulnerability in her. Not vulnerability as
though he could take advantage of her. Vulnerability in the
sense that she's opening up herself to him. This is not a reference to some
essential weakness in women, for it's evident that Solomon
sees only this woman in this way. Her tenderness and vulnerability
to him are toward him and him alone. By the manner of her look,
she has conveyed that she is defenseless against his charms. He draws out of her just a sense
of adoration. And of course, that
affects him. Her heart is fully open to him.
It's not a weakness on her part, but a willing surrender drawn
out by love. Now, speaking as a man, such
a look is unnerving to most men. To have someone look into your
eyes with such love as that is looking for a similar look in
return. And we men in our fallen state,
we're all about independence. We're about being strong and
not being vulnerable. And most of us are about being
kind of private rather than open. Consequently, to have a woman
look at us like that, well, some men, because they're brutish,
take advantage of it. and they act as though they have
similar feelings, but only to serve their own purposes. Other
men who are good men of good motivation, they still might
be unnerved and it's just more than they can bear. They look
away, they try to change the subject or the context or something
because they don't know how to return such tender affection
as is being shown to them. But some men do know how. And what Solomon is saying here is
that this unnerving, unsettling look of love, of openness, of
giving, is so powerful and wonderful, he cannot resist it either. Now,
the first time I ever saw my wife, I knew she was a pretty
woman. You can tell that in a glance. But, and I was talking to her
about this this morning before I came over here to the church
building. What I remember, I mean, I've got lots of little photographs
in my mind of times we spent together, but I do remember we
went to a college-sponsored banquet. And, you know, I didn't have
a date, and she was dating some guy back home. And so I said,
we can just go together. And I met her at the place, and
she had dolled herself up real nice. And I was too oblivious
to see what signals that might be sending. But she looked very
fetching, but what got me more than anything else, and it had
just kind of unsettled me, is the way she looked at me. And
many times afterward, in the years that we've been married,
I've often thought, I feel a little sorry for adolescent girls because
our society has foisted upon them this singular look of beauty
and they think that they have to be able to match that. And
it puts them under such pressure. And unfortunately, many of them
don't present themselves modestly because they think the only way
they can attract a man is immodestly. And I wish somehow or another
I could convince them that 90% of the attractiveness that truly
brings on the kind of relationship they want is in their eyes. And there are women who you could
look at them objectively and say, that fits the pattern, that's
a pretty woman, but I'm not attracted. And then I've seen some women,
you know, I've seen some guys and, you know, they're all excited
about a girl they've met, And then when you meet him, you almost
want to go, okay. I hate to say it that way, but
what is it that attracted him? It's the eyes. And that's what
happened to Solomon. She looked at him, maybe across
the room. Or I think of the context here,
it was during a sexual liaison. Nonetheless, it was the eyes
that got him. It may be difficult for us to
imagine the Lord Jesus loving us in this irresistible fashion. By that I mean that he cannot
help himself, that somehow or another he sees in us that which
draws out of him such a statement as we see Solomon make there. We know that his love for us
did not originate from anything about us. But this book is not
about a theological or it's not a theological treatise on the
love of the eternal God for us. While we hold firmly to the unchangeableness
of God and rely on his unchanging love for us, we must not forget
that our God entered space and time in the person of Jesus Christ,
not only that he might serve as our substitute, but that he
might unite with us on this very human level. His desire was not merely to
save a people, but to be joined to them. The first man and woman joined
together, Adam and Eve. It says of them, they shall be
one flesh. And that is the goal, so to speak, of this, spiritually
speaking, this union between Christ and His church, that they
may be one. Utterly absorbed one with the
other. Now in this life, this loving
union has its ups and downs. Not that His love for us changes,
it doesn't. The objective reality of it remains
the same all the time. But his expressions of that love
to us change with our expressions of love for him. If we are not enamored of him,
if we are not gazing upon him, then we do not get the return
of his gaze upon us and his appreciation of our eyes. Now, I know that
sounds strange, but like I say, we're talking here about our
experience of his love. His love is unchanging. But the
Bible speaks of God hiding his face, even from his people. And generally speaking, that's
because they hid his face or hid their face from him. And
the return of this pleasing Intimate and intense relationship comes
when we turn back and gaze at him with those adoring eyes once
again. And it always draws from him
such things as Solomon said here. But there is even more to the
comparison of the Shulamite's eyes to doves. Doves are common,
a common figure or image in the scriptures. The Spirit of God
is pictured as a dove descending on the Lord Jesus Christ at his
baptism. And it's that same Spirit that
has opened our eyes, enabling us to see the beauty of the Lord
Jesus. It is only with these heavenly
dove eyes that we can behold him with that sense of openness
and vulnerability that marks the faith of the believer. Later
on we'll get to that scripture where it says, I am my beloved's
and my beloved's mine. There's a hymn in our book, hymn
book, I think it's number 56. Loved with everlasting love,
saved by grace that love to know, spirit breathing from above,
thou has taught me it is so. But the last line, you know,
in a love that cannot cease, I am his and he is mine. And
this love is experienced. by us in this present state,
somewhat in the measure that we're expressing our love toward
him. And this is, of course, done
only through the instrumentality of the spirit. And then Christ
himself is pictured by the dove, for doves are one of the animals
permissible to be used in sacrifice, specifically for the poor. They
have these sacrifices, you know, and it says, well, it has to
be a heifer or a lamb, or if a person is poor. Two doves. And so here is two doves. A picture
of Christ as our sacrifice. And that's what Christ sees in
the eyes of his believer. We look to him that way. And then the believer himself
is pictured by doves. It was doves that Noah sent or
that Noah used to identify whether the waters had receded sufficiently.
At first, the dove could not find a place to rest the soles
of its feet. But in time, the dove found life
and brought back a sprig from an olive tree. And that is, the
olive tree is a universal sign of peace. And you know, believers,
they have no place in this world to rest until they find Christ,
and they rest in Him, and there they have peace. Now, verse 16,
the Shulamite expresses pretty much the same, says, oh, how
handsome are you, my lover. Oh, how charming our bed is verdant. Now, again, she is swept away. She is overcome. with her love
for him. She uses that word, oh. She repeats
herself, though she uses two different words. She says, oh,
how handsome you are. And that's the general word for
good looking, you know? And so she's saying that anybody
would recognize you as good looking. And you know, this kind of beauty,
there is, you know, They've shown this scientifically. There are
certain standards or whatever that are universally recognized
in terms of human beauty. Now, some of the more superficial
aspects of it, they change with cultures and change over time. But still, from what I understand,
it has to do with symmetry and such things like that. But one
thing is known, there are certain people in the world, everybody
recognize that's a good looking human. In fact, I've said before,
you see a guy and he is obviously a handsome man. And I as a man
can recognize that. I can say, yeah, he's a pretty
good looking man. And that's just the objective
concept of beauty. But she goes on, she says, He said, oh, how charming. And
this word, actually, the name Naomi comes from this word. And if you remember Naomi of
the book of Ruth, her husband, in a time of famine, they went
to Moab. Their two sons got married, and
in time, Naomi's husband died, and then her two sons died, and
one of her daughters-in-law went back to her father's house, but
the one daughter-in-law, named Ruth, went back to Israel with
her. And when she got back to Bethlehem,
their town, you know, all the friends say, you know, oh, Naomi,
so good to see you. You know, that kind of thing.
She says, don't call me Naomi. Naomi means pleasant. He says,
call me Mara. And supposedly, the word mer,
and the name Mary come from this, and it means bitter. Okay, so
what is being said here is, she says, oh, how pleasant or pleasing
to look at. In other words, she's attracted
by him. Now, as I said, I as a man can
recognize that another man is a handsome man. But I would never refer to a
man as attractive or charming, because they aren't to me. And
the same can be said when someone looks at a person of the opposite
sex, they can recognize, well, that's a good-looking person,
but they're still not attracted. She's saying of Solomon, you
are objectively beautiful, and I am drawn by your beauty. And then she says, our bed is
verdant. Now, King James says our bed
is green, which is true. I mean, that's what the Hebrew
word there means. But verdant comes from the Spanish
word for green. And I think it carries the sense
of what's meant here. Verdant means lushly or lush
vegetation. If you talk about a verdant forest,
it's one full of green trees or verdant grasslands or whatever. And so what it bespeaks is life. Now it's not speaking here of
life in terms of reproduction. when she says our bed is verdant,
she's not saying, you know, we're producing lots of children, because
again, children are never mentioned in this book. Rather, get my notes here. The reference is not to fertility. Rather, she is pointing to the
fact that their sex life has not been reduced to the mere
animalistic passions that characterize the sex lives of many, a characteristic
that eventually produces a desert-like bed that is no longer fully satisfying
and can easily lead to someone seeking out another bed. In other words, and this is likely
beginning with verse 15 there, their conversation is going on
during a lovemaking session. And she is saying, our bed. It's enjoyable. It's satisfying. And the reason it was satisfying
is because what they were engaged in physically was joined with
a truly loving attention to one another. And the fact that he notes her
eyes, tells us something here about
human sexuality and then how it applies to our relationship
to Christ. Face-to-face sexual encounters. I remember watching a documentary
on, oh it was a National Geographic thing or Discover or something,
but they made the remark that only humans are capable of that. And it indicates something about
human sexuality that it goes beyond the mere physical. The
ability to have face-to-face sexual relations like that indicates,
as I said, eye-to-eye, that's a very personal thing. That involves
more than the body. That engages, for lack of a better
way to put it, the soul. That engages the person inside.
Now, when animals engage in this, pretty much all that's going
on is a male trying to satisfy his sexual desires, and then
that's used to propagate the race. And what's interesting is that
face-to-face sexual encounter, its popular name is the missionary
position, they call it, and I was kind of surprised to find out
why it was called that. I remember as a kid, You know,
when you're in your teenage years, you might try to look into all
these things because you're curious about them. And I found out why
they called it that, because I couldn't think why in the world
would they ever associate missionaries with that. But what happened
as the European and American missionaries went to primitive
areas to preach the gospel and lived among them, Locals, the natives of that area,
would spy on them. And they spied on them when they
were involved in sexual encounters, and they were surprised to find
them in this face-to-face position. Now, I'm not trying to make any
statements about various races or cultures or something, calling
people good and bad on account of this, but one thing that is
notable And it's kind of illustrated by that very fact that the more
that a culture values women and holds them in esteem, the more
likely it is that their sexual conduct goes beyond merely reproduction
and the satisfying of a man's sexual drive and involves the
intimacy of face-to-face contact. And so that's what we have here.
We have this picture, if you will, of human sexuality in its
perfection, because it involves two who are not only united physically,
but are united in their hearts, shown by the fact they are communicating
eye to eye. They have both opened themselves
up physically and psychologically, lovingly, to the other person.
Now, we may feel squeamish as we try to apply these things
to our relationship with Christ. But remember, when we're speaking
of our relationship with Christ, we are speaking of spiritual
things. And it's using what we understand in our normal physical
and emotional lives, in our marriages, taking that most intimate connection
between two people and saying, spiritually speaking, that's
what it's like between Christ and his church. And is that not
true? We're entirely open to him. We look on him and we adore
him. And He looks at us, and He's
enamored of us. And He's enamored of us because
of the way we look at Him. And is it not also true that
when we close our hearts to Him, when by the pursuit of something
sinful, or even the, shall we say, sinful pursuit of something
that might, under proper conditions, be appropriate, Becoming distracted by the world,
it's during those times we do not enjoy such things as are
being illustrated here. All the sweetness that comes
from unhindered, unobstructed, personal, as it were, face-to-face
union with our Lord Jesus Christ. And then last, it'll just take
a minute, verse 17. The beams of our house are cedars. Our rafters are firs. Now, I
had a little trouble with this because as a carpenter, I know
that fir is stronger than cedar. And you wouldn't expect the beams
to be made out of cedar. And then the rafters that are
going to sit on the beams being made out of something stronger.
You would start, you make the beams out of strong stuff. But
as with all languages, words have various meanings. And the
word translated beam can simply mean roof. And so I believe what's
being spoken of here, back then they had the flat roof type of
thing. And so the rafters or the joists
as we might call them, fir, strong, able to support the weight. And
then over top of that, if you were wealthy enough and you wanted
a home that looked lavish, you nailed those cedar boards. And
they're both beautiful and fragrant. And so they made for what would
be considered a high-class home in that time. But here's what
you get from it. He said, our house is strong
and beautiful. And it is. What is the house
of God? It's the church of the living
God where he dwells. And he's there. And that makes
it strong. And that makes it beautiful.
All right, so we're done with chapter one. We'll pick up beginning
in chapter two next week.