you'd open your Bibles to the
book of Song of Solomon or Song of Songs, some even call it Canticles, the scriptural name is the Song
of Songs of Solomon, indicating that it was considered probably
by him, he probably put the title, that among the thousand and five
songs that he had written, this he considered was the best. Now
we've spent the first two lessons primarily with introductory material
describing the marital and romantic relationships used in this book
as they would have been understood in the time this book was written.
because this book is one of only two books in the Bible that never
mentions the name God, the other book being Esther. Yet it is
a book about God, particularly a book about God in Christ. And
if you're going to understand what it tells us about Christ
and his beloved church, we have to understand the marital culture
of the day, and so we discussed that. We also discussed the fact
that this is dramatic poetry. It's not like the writings of
the Apostle Paul, which were very doctrinal and logically designed and were written primarily
to impact us on the level of our intellect, instruct us on
various doctrines. This book is a book of poetry
And poetry, like all artwork, is designed to impact us on a
deeper, shall we say, or more emotional level. It takes things
that we already understand, but puts them in a framework that,
I won't say it bypasses the intellect, it goes beyond that and addresses
us on a very personal level. Its purpose is to move us. to
allow us to enter into the experience of the things that it references. And it's also dramatic. There
are three characters. There's Solomon. He was the king
after David. His name means peace. There is
this woman who is never given a specific name. She's called
the Shulamite. And the word Shulamite essentially
means, well, it's the feminine version of Solomon. So her name
means peace as well. And then there are the others,
sometimes called the friends or whatever, but they are just
a nondescript group of people. And within the context of drama,
particularly ancient drama, ancient Greek drama, they would have
been called the chorus. but their purpose is to say things
or explain things to the audience that cannot be put into the mouths
of either the leading man or the leading lady. And so as we
go through this book, knowing those things ahead of time will
help us. So now verse two is where we
are this morning. It says, let him kiss me with
the kisses of his mouth, for your love is more delightful
than wine." Now the Shulamite's desire here,
what she is expressing as her desire is an intimate communication
with her lover. Now, I know that ever since the
60s, the word lover has been used generally to refer to someone
with whom a person is carrying on an illicit or sinful romantic
relationship. don't ever hear of it being used
so often of a person's wife or husband. But here, we're going
to use it as simply the one I love. That's what the word lover means,
or the one who loves me. So we're going to rob the world
of its corruption of the word and use it as what it means,
the one with whom a person engages in this romantic love. And in this case, it's legitimate
expressions of that love. In all societies, kissing is
considered an especially intimate expression of the affection that
one person has towards another person, whatever relationship
that might be. We're in 1 Solomon 1, verse 2. For example, a person needs only
to observe a mother kissing her baby to understand the tenderness
the affectionate love that is being communicated by kiss. Now, there are different kinds
of kisses in the world. And each one, depending on the
culture it is, it's in, expresses a certain kind or level of intimacy. So parents, may kiss their children. Some even kiss their children
on the lips. You know, different cultures
allow for different levels of intimacy. You go in some of the
countries in Europe, people commonly greet one another with a kiss
on each cheek. And that's, I mean, you know,
a man may give a kiss like that to a woman who's not his wife,
and nothing's thought of, it means more than a handshake would
mean, or just a good morning, ma'am, or something like that.
But nothing sexual or romantic is implied by it, so much so
that even the men will greet each other that way. Now, that's
probably something that we would feel a little bit uncomfortable
with. But I will tell you this, I do remember And this would
have probably been in the mid-90s. And I was down at the conference
in Cherokee, North Carolina. And Henry Mahan was one of the
preachers there. Now, Henry Mahan was one of the
mentors, one of my mentors in the ministry. And he was my pastor. That is, Bonnie and I attended
his church for six years in the late 70s, early 80s. There was
a strong bond of love between us. And it was Henry's habit
when he would go to these conferences, the church that asked him would
always pay him something, but normally speaking, he would get
that check cashed and he would give it away. You know, that
was just the kind of person he was. And so I was there and,
you know, a young preacher at that time. Well, I would have
been approaching 40 somewhere in that neighborhood, but he
knew that we struggled somewhat financially, and particularly
on trips like that, we could use a little extra cash. And we met each other, and he
came up to me, and he reached out his hand. Of course, I put
out my hand, and when he reached out his hand, he transferred
a $100 bill to my hand. And then he came up and he gave
me a kiss on the cheek. And he said, this is because
I love you. Now, so far as I know, that's the only man that's kissed
me on the cheek since I was a baby. I didn't feel the least bit offended
by it. I didn't feel awkward. I felt particularly loved. And so that's the aspect of a
kiss. Now, I don't know why that's
so natural to us. But we understand that the mouth expresses an intimacy
that cannot be matched. So when she says, let him kiss
me with the kisses of his mouth, she is first addressing those
intimate expressions of love that one reserves for special
people in their lives. We don't go around kissing just
everybody. And, but here's something that's
kind of unusual because she says, let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth. I remember when I read that,
I said, well, what other kind of kiss is there? I mean, the
only thing you can kiss with is your mouth. So why would she
say, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth? Well, there
are three ways I think that this can be resolved. First of all,
it's nothing more than a poetic device. You know, she mentions
kisses, but you know, in poetry in particular, sometimes you'll
make a statement and then you'll build upon it. And the mouth
being such a sensitive part, I mean, our lips are very sensitive
to touch. You know, you can be eating,
you know, and maybe if you're carrying on a conversation or
whatever, and you go to put something in your mouth and it doesn't
feel right going across your lips, you stop and look. Maybe
you picked up something you didn't want. Lips are very sensitive. That's, I guess, one of the reasons
that it naturally developed in us this means of conveying intimate
love. Maybe it's just a poetic device. This word can also mean just
affectionate touching. Now, that's what I read. You
know, this stuff I read from commentators. I am not an expert
in Hebrew, but I look these up, these words up in reference books. And evidently there are occasions
where this word translated kiss refers to simply affectionate
touches. Well, then it would make sense
to say, let him touch me with the touches of his mouth. She's
not looking for a handshake. She's not looking for a, you
know, a rub on the head like you might with a little kid.
Good boy. You know, something like that. That might be why
she did it this way. But, and this is something that
I, thought of that could be implied
here, that she is talking about mouth-to-mouth kissing. Like
I said, there's lots of different kinds of kissing. There are several
different kinds. But most mouth-to-mouth kissing
is reserved for the most intimate of relationships. Certainly anything
beyond a little peck. If someone kisses another person
for any longer than about one second, well, if that isn't a
husband and wife, we start to get a little uncomfortable. In
fact, in weddings, when you say, you may now kiss the bride, well,
they are husband and wife. But even in that public situation,
there is in the minds of people, OK, there's a certain length
for that kiss to go on. And then let's move on to I now
present to you so-and-so. And it's because of the intimacy
of it. So what she's probably asking
for when she says, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth,
is the most intimate of kisses between a man and a woman, those
who are married, in which they express with this very sensitive
part of the body. by joining them in whatever they
express their deep, profound, and powerful love for one another. She's saying, kiss me with the
kind of kisses that you don't give to anyone else. So, this particular kind of kissing
is a two-way communication. Now, when a mother kisses her
little baby on the cheek, or when my pastor, Henry Mahan,
kissed me on the cheek, that's a one-way communication. They're
communicating their love to the person. But mouth-to-mouth
kissing is a two-way conversation. It's a two-way communication
of love. In fact, so much is it so that if or one of the most,
how would you put it, insulting or humiliating, one of the strongest
forms of rejection between two people who are supposed to be
in love is for one to go in for a kiss and the other to turn
their face away. What are they saying? You may
love me, but I don't love you. So this mouth-to-mouth kissing,
which may be what's implied here, it's a two-way communication.
I am my beloved's and my beloved's mine. He loves me and I love
him. Now, believers crave the intimate
affection of the Lord Jesus. They are ready and willing to
express their love for him and they crave his expressions of
love to them. When she says, let him kiss me
with the kisses of his mouth, she is saying, I am ready to
kiss him. I'm all puckered up and ready
to go. I will not be turning my face
away. I want this. Now, if you are a believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ, you want from the Lord Jesus Christ what
is represented by the kisses that Solomon would give to this
woman in answer to her request. Now, most commentators say kisses
of his mouth represents his word, because his word comes from his
mouth. You know, as I read commentators on this, for lack of a better
word, they take all the fun out of this book. Maybe it's because
of their embarrassment in talking about sexual things. But they
try to turn it into nothing more than symbolic descriptions of
some very unemotional things. Well, Solomon wrote this within the
context of the most powerfully intimate and emotional relationship
that can exist between two human beings. And he did so in order
that we would recognize that there is and will be in perfection
a relationship with our Savior that is intimate powerfully intimate and that our salvation does not
consist of simply not going to hell and instead
going to heaven where everything's fine. Salvation, its ultimate
experience is a perfect and complete union with the Lord Jesus Christ. to fully enjoy Him, to have His
love so powerfully communicated to us. We cannot doubt it. We were estranged from Him by
sin. Salvation doesn't just reconcile
us as two friends might be reconciled. It reconciles us in such a way
that only the most ideal images of human marriage are
capable of even coming close to expressing that powerful intimacy
with Christ. She's wanting more than a kiss
on the cheek, which might be what preaching is. Remember I
said, You know, that's one-way communication. This is one-way
communication. And I'm trying to tell you the
word of the Lord and the love of Christ for his people will
be communicated in this, but it's a one-way communication.
She's not asking for one-way communication. She wants the
two-way communication. So we've got to look past simply
the preaching of his word. that a believer desires that
personal contact that produces intimate knowledge of someone
else. Paul wrote this in Philippians,
that I may know him. That was what drove him in everything
he did, that I may know him. So Paul, don't you know Christ?
Yes, I want to know him better. I want to know him more intimately.
I want the power of his resurrection. And I don't have time to get
into what that means here, but remember that his resurrection
was the testimony of God's acceptance of his sacrifice. And therefore
it was testimony to the fullness of salvation guaranteed for everyone
who is in Christ. So when he says, I want to know
him and the power of his resurrection, he says, I want all of it. I hunger for it now. I want to
know him in perfection, in totality, with nothing between. The life of a believer is full
of all the conflict that this world creates. The Shulamite
seeks intimacy with the one who is her Solomon,
her peace. Believers long for an intimate,
even sensible connection to Christ. Such times often occur when the
church meets. I know that I receive benefit
from the meetings with you believers that I don't get during the week.
I mean, I study. I read. I got the Word in front
of me. But there's something about the
gathering of the believers and the preached word that has a
more powerful influence on me than merely the studied word,
even though it's the same word. But there's supposed to be something
more in worship services. If you want this intimacy that
the Shulamite did, something more in our worship services.
You know, when we listen to a preacher preach, It would do our hearts
good to quit listening to him and listen for Christ in what
he says. And I've heard preachers say
this and I agree with them. I wish that when I preached,
I would just disappear. That they wouldn't be thinking,
he's a good preacher. That's not the point. Tom Spurgeon and his grandfather, Well, Spurgeon was supposed to
preach, but his train got there late. So his grandfather, who
was a preacher, got started. And then Spurgeon showed up. And the older Spurgeon said,
well, I see my grandson has arrived. He can preach the gospel better
than me, but he can't preach a better gospel. And that's the
point here. Preachers preach different ways.
Oh, he's a better preacher than this guy. No. Are they telling
the truth? It's the gospel that matters.
And in the gospel, in the truth of Christ, who he is and what
he has done, we gain the testimony of Christ's love for us. He loved
us and gave himself for us. That's the testimony of his love.
But so often we receive that testimony, yet from our hearts
nothing goes back. Now you're listening to me and
it's not appropriate that we have a dialogue here. It's a sermon, it's a one-way
communication so far as me talking and you listening. But in your
heart, there should be a two-way communication going on. You hear
the word of the Lord. And in your heart, if you don't
express it out loud, at least in your heart, amen, Lord. Thank
you. That's wonderful. That's you
kissing back. That's you not being satisfied
with the kiss on the cheek, which is a good thing in and of itself.
We won't deny the benefit of it, but would you have what this
Shulamite wants from Solomon? Talk back to the Lord. I've often
wondered when I read about some of the people of days gone by,
and we talk about them praying for three hours, and I'm thinking
to myself, What do they mean praying for three hours? Our
Lord, it said He would pray throughout the night. And I thought, what's
He praying about? Until I realized, at least came to what I believe
is realized, their prayers were not monologues. That's how we perceive prayer.
I go to prayer, you know, I try to get my mind focused on Christ
and then I just talk to Him. These people were having conversations.
I'm sure there were times of silence in their mind. But during those times of silence,
the Spirit of God would take the things that had been taught
to them and would bring them to remembrance and they'd think
on them again. That's God speaking, that's Christ
speaking back. Two-way communication. in a form
that none but his people can understand. Then she goes on to say, your
love is more delightful than wine. Now, there is a repetition here, but
it's a visual one. And you won't get it from the
English. I'm not saying you can't gain
the benefit of what's being said, but I think it's interesting
to see the poetic repetition going on here. The word, when
it says, for your love, that word is derived from a word meaning
to boil. And then it says, it's more delightful
than wine. And the word described there
for wine is to effervesce, which is what grape juice does as it's
becoming wine. Consequently, they just use that
as a word for wine. So when a grape juice is going
through the fermenting process, it's bubbling. Water, heat it
up, it boils. So she is taking two bubbling
things, and comparing them. And she says, your love is more
delightful than wine. Now in referring to bubbling
things then, we realize she's not talking about just those
things in the abstract, particularly with the word love. She's not
talking about love as just an abstract sentimental attitude
that God has for someone. He's talking about love in action,
love in expression. It's written, God commended his
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. It's not just God loves you and
that's it. It's God loves you and did something
to express that love. Now this shows, I don't wanna be insulting here,
but this message. that most people believe is gospel
preaching that begins with God loves you. I mean, you go out
to an indiscriminate crowd, group of people, maybe you're going
to those who you know full well do express no faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And they go to them and they
say, God loves you. You know, the Bible never says
that. And you will look in vain in any of the Messages, what
we might call evangelistic messages in the book of Acts that ever
said, that any of the apostles ever said to those they were
preaching, God loves you. Why? That's an inactive love. If there is any kind of love
that God expresses towards everybody, what good is it? It does nothing. Because that would mean that
the majority of the people he loves end up in hell anyway. So the gospel is not God loves
you. Or as one of the popular tracts
of my day called the four spiritual laws, the first of them was God
loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. Tell that
to Pharaoh. Where God says to Pharaoh, for
this cause have I lifted you up. I put you on that throne
so I can display my power, so I can slap you back down. Not
much love in that. This sentimental, emotional love
that people ascribe to God, and that's all there is to the love,
that's not the love of God, nor is it the love that is mentioned
here. This is a love in action, a boiling
love, a love that expresses itself. Now, she compares it to wine. Now, I grew up in a church that
thought that anything with alcohol in it was essentially sinful.
We don't have time to turn because we're really a little bit past
already, but we'll finish this verse. In the book of Isaiah, I thought
I'd written it down here. Okay, excuse me, book of Psalm
104, verses 14 and 15. It lists things that God has
done and how they are for the good of man. He made grass for
cattle and that's good for man because we use cattle. And then
it says, and he made all kinds of vegetation for the use of
man. And in the next verse he said, and he made wine to gladden
the heart of man. And it's the same word for wine
there as right here, the effervescent. No doubt referring to alcoholic
wine. Now here's the thing, all the
sorrows, all the things that bring us down and cause us trouble
in this world are the result of the curse.
Yet in the curse is a blessing and only our God can do that.
It's my opinion, and I realize I cannot go to a verse to show
this, but there wouldn't have been any such thing as fermentation
before the fall. Fermentation is a process that
wouldn't have been needed before the fall, and it's actually,
in a sense, the corruption of a thing. And yet, in that very
corruption, if you will, God put something that he intended
for men to be able to use to experience some relief from the
life of cursedness they must live. I mean, life is stressful. And if people have differing
abilities of dealing with the stress, and those differences
in abilities are not matters of will as we normally think
of it, they're generally speaking have to do with how a person's
brain operates. And whether it's overactive in
anxious responses, or, you know, there's some people you couldn't
hardly stir their hair with a tornado. And there's others, a slight
breeze, you know, and they're heading for the, seller. You know that's just personality.
But we've been you know he cursed
Adam he said, you're going to farm but there's not going to
be anything but thorns and thistles come it's going to be tough to
make a living. And even with all our modern advances life
is stressful. And God gave alcoholic wine to
help with that. Now here's the thing we can abuse
it. And many people do. And I guess
that's why some religious people, you know, think, oh, don't ever
touch it. Well, if you go around and you won't touch anything
that can be abused, you're not going to be able to touch much.
Remember the sinfulness of a thing is not in the thing. It's in
the way we use it. And there are some people who
are so naturally addictive and can so easily become addicted
to alcohol. They need to stay away from it. But it's there, and God gave
it, and it does help. But the Shulamite is saying Solomon's
expressions of love, the kisses of his mouth, his caresses, his
embraces, they're better than wine. And let me mention just
a few ways, first, Wine can help with the normal
stresses of the day-to-day living, but there are sorrows and burdens
which wine cannot touch. But the love of Christ testified
in our hearts by the Spirit of God through the Word of Christ
can relieve us. Wine brings peace to a person
by dulling the senses to the realities that are around him.
making him forget. Christ love brings peace of heart
by opening the eyes to other realities, to that which is unseen
by the natural eye. Wine can be misused. One can
have too much wine, causing its blessing to become a curse. I
said wine is a blessing within the curse, but there's a curse
within that blessing when it's misused. You can have too much
wine, but you cannot have too much of the love of Christ. In
Ephesians 5, 18, it says, do not be drunk with wine, which
leads to, I think King James says excess, but what it's talking
about, sinful. Conduct, be filled with the Spirit. Don't be filled up with wine,
be filled with the Spirit. What is the Spirit? The Spirit
is the one who comes and brings to us these tokens of Christ's
love for us. He takes the things of Christ
and shows them to us. And there's no such thing as
having too much of that. And it never leads to anything
harmful. Being drunk with wine leads to
an increase in sinful activity, and if you read here in Ephesians
5, 18, the following verses, being drunk with Christ, so to
speak, leads to speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and
spiritual songs, singing and making music from your heart
to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder. The love of
Christ expressed to us is better, even than the best wine. And then lastly, the benefit
of wine quickly wears off. And if it's been overused, once
it wears off, the sorrows that we had before drinking are multiplied. The benefit of Christ is eternal.
For the joy and peace brought by it, brought by his affections,
is present even when the sorrows of life overwhelm us. The fruit of the Spirit, remember
I said the Spirit's the one who brings these tokens of Christ's
affection to us. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace. Why? It's our Savior saying, you are mine. You are mine. You are mine in
a way that others are not. I love you with the deepest love
that can be imagined. I will preserve you. I will keep
you. And it's that joy which is the
joy of the Lord and the strength of his, which is called the strength
of his people. And that's why believers can
endure things that others cannot. Let him kiss me with the kisses
of his mouth, the most intimate expressions of love. For his
expressions of love, his boiling love, is better than bubbling
wine. All right, we'll stop there.