I invite your attention to the
Song of Solomon, chapter one. Song of Solomon,
chapter one. And today, God willing, we will
commence an exposition of this entire book, verse by verse,
in much the same way that we are going through the revelation
of Jesus Christ in our midweek service. Our lesson this morning
will commence with Song of Solomon, chapter one, and we're gonna
be looking only at verse number one. Verse one is the prologue
to this book. You have the synopsis inside
your bulletin, so you may follow along with me just about word
by word. The synopsis is the insert that
is in your bulletin. Song of Solomon chapter 1 verse
1 reads the song of songs which is Solomon's. That's the title
of this book. We have observed that the last
book of the Bible, the title of the book is the Revelation
of Jesus Christ. We sometimes call it the Book
of Revelation. We sometimes call this the Book
of Solomon, but the title of the book as it is given in the
scriptures is The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. This book
sometimes is called The Canticles from a Latin word meaning song. You'll find that some of the
older English writers used to call it Canticles. But the title
of the book as it is, here before us is The Song of Songs, which
is Solomon's. This book is a song. It was written
in poetry. Now of course the music to which
it was sung has been irretrievably lost and so it now is to us a
poem. I'm sure it would be a lovely
song if we had the music, but the poetry is beautiful. We can
imagine that perhaps we'll know the music to this when we have
arrived in glory. This book is a great blessing
to God's people, and this song is said to be the song of songs. Now, observe that phrase, song
of songs. You have heard of the holy of
holies. You have heard of the king of
kings. You have heard of the lord of
lords. In English, we have ways of expressing
superlatives. Something is great, greater,
and greatest. That did not exist in Hebrew,
such a means of expressing superlatives. So when you wanted to say that
something was the foremost of something, you said, King of
kings means there is no king higher. Lord of lords, the foremost
Lord. The holy of holies was the foremost
holy place or the most holy place on earth. And this song of songs
is, in God's word, the foremost song there is. Now, saints, probably
have no problem with that. Others may. They may find other
songs that are greater to them, but to children of God, there
is no song greater than this one. This is the song of songs.
This is a foretaste of the song that we're going to be singing
in glory. Look at Revelation chapter 14.
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, chapter 14. I want you to see that this song
of songs, which is Solomon's, is a foretaste of what you're
going to be singing in glory. In Revelation 14, verse 3, we
read that they sang as it were a new song before the throne. before the four living creatures
and the elders and no one could learn that song except the 144,000
who were redeemed from the earth and that would be the aggregate
of all God's people. These are the ones who were not
defiled with women for they are virgins. These are the ones who
follow the Lamb wherever he goes. These were redeemed from among
men, being firstfruits to God and to the Lamb. And in their
mouth was found no guile, for they are without fault before
the throne of God. Now, when we have reached glory,
we're gonna sing this song. We do not know what it is now.
But you need not worry about having the words. You'll have
them when you need them. But this song is much like that. This song is to be sung only
by virgins, only by the 144,000, only by God's people, his church. We're gonna come to the identity
of the people in this in just a moment. But consider that this
song of songs is said to be Solomon's. He's the writer of this. Solomon
was a very prolific writer. He wrote 1,005 songs. In addition to 3,000 proverbs,
you can read that in 1 Kings 4, verse 32. 1,005 songs, a couple of psalms
we have in the book of Psalms came from him, but this is perhaps
one of the only psalms of his that we have other than the couple
of psalms. Solomon wrote Proverbs, Ecclesiastes,
and the Song of Solomon. It is said that He wrote the
Song of Solomon as a young man, and it is a love story, and wrote
the Book of Proverbs, probably in his mature years, because
that book does indeed show his maturity. and then wrote the
book of Ecclesiastes as an old man, and by that time, he had
come to realize that life is worthless, vanity of vanities,
all is vanity, and particularly when you live your life the way
that he did. But this song, probably written when he was a young man,
and it expresses his love to a woman, and her love to him. This is a love story. This is
a love song. In this book, you're gonna read
about one called the Shulamite. And you're gonna find that her name
is given only twice in chapter six, verse 13. The name means
the perfect, the peaceful. And the definite article the
indicates probably that this was Solomon's pet name for her. We're not told what her given
name was, but to Solomon he called her the Shulamite. lot of husbands have pet names
for their wives. Sandy and I were visiting with
some friends a few days ago and he hollered to his wife and he
called her babe. Now he calls his wife the same
thing I call mine. I suppose we have pet names.
Well, pet names For Solomon here, the Shulamite was the one that
he had for this one. Her name means the perfect and
the peaceful. Remember that we're going to
come back in a moment to the fact that her name means the
perfect, the peaceful. Other characters in this song
are the Daughters of Jerusalem. I'll describe them in a moment
because The point that I want to stress to you, more than the
fact that this is about Solomon and the Shulamite, and I do stress,
more important than Solomon and the Shulamite is the fact that
Solomon here represents Jesus Christ, and the Shulamite represents
his church. This song is a love song describing
the love and the courtship and the marital relationship of Jesus
Christ and his church. She is to him the Shulamite,
and she is in his sight perfect and peaceful, and her perfection
and her peace have come from and by and through him. This
Shulamite is the wife of Jesus Christ, the one that he loved
and cleansed and redeemed, as you can read in Ephesians chapter
5. This is the Church of Jesus Christ,
and the Daughters of Jerusalem are the respective members in
the Church. And in this regard, all of us
who are believers in Jesus Christ will, in this Song of Solomon,
be described by the Daughters of Jerusalem. When you hear the
daughters of Jerusalem addressed or when you hear the daughters
of Jerusalem speaking, these are respective or individual
members of the Church of Jesus Christ. When you read about the
Shulamite, the Shulamite is the Church of Christ in its aggregate,
the whole body of Jesus Christ. Christ is typified by Solomon. What do we have here? Twelve
ways, I believe I put. Yes, twelve ways. We're not going
to spend much time with this. The topology is not that important,
but I do want you to see it. That Solomon is a type of our
Lord Jesus Christ. Solomon's name means peace. You see the word, the Hebrew
word shalom in there, shalom, the word for peace. Solomon's
name means peace, Christ is peace, for this one shall be peace,
Micah 5, verse 5, and he himself is our peace, Ephesians 2, verse
14. Solomon, being peaceful by nature,
was the least warlock of all the kings of Israel or Judah.
Jesus Christ is the least warlock of all the kings of this world
and the prince of peace. Isaiah 9 verse 6. Third, now
Jehovah loved Solomon and called his name Jedidiah. Jedidiah meaning
loved of Jehovah. Our son came very close to being
named Jedidiah. My wife loved that name. It is
a good name. It is a good name. It means loved
of Jehovah. Jehovah loves Christ and manifests
him to be the greater Jedidiah when he calls him my beloved
son in whom I am well pleased. Fourth, God gave Solomon wisdom. God made Christ to give to his
people wisdom from God. Fifth, Solomon's fame was in
all the surrounding nations. 1 Kings 4, 31. Christ's fame
is in all the nations. Sixth, men of all nations came
to hear the wisdom of Solomon. 1 Kings 4, verse 34. Men of even more nations are
coming to hear the wisdom of Christ. I did. Seventh one who
came to Solomon said indeed the half of the greatness of your
wisdom was not told to me You exceeded the fame of which I
heard that was the Queen of Sheba Well all who come to Christ say
the same of him. I I thought I knew of Christ
when I came to him and I In fact, I had been raised by godly parents,
catechized from infancy, and taught the scriptures, and knew
the scriptures, and when I came to Christ, age 27 years, I thought
I knew of Christ, but when I came to him, I found out I didn't
know the half of it. And I still do not. Number eight, under Solomon's
reign, Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand by the
sea in multitude, eating and drinking and rejoicing. And the
same is true of the church under Christ's reign, eating and drinking
and rejoicing. Number nine, under Solomon's
reign, Judah and Israel dwelt safely, each man under his vine
and his fig tree all the days of Solomon. This is a Hebraism,
a figure of speech. When you ask the man, well, how
are you doing? He'd say, I'm sitting under my
vine and my fig tree, meaning that all is well. I am in peace
and in prosperity. That's even more so under Christ. Number 10. In both Solomon and Christ, God
fulfilled his promise to David in 2 Samuel 7, 12, that when
your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will
set up your seed after you who will come from your body and
I will establish his kingdom. I want you to locate that passage,
2 Samuel chapter 7, because it is one of the most important
of the prophetic passages in the scriptures with regards to
Jesus Christ and his relationship with David. 2 Samuel chapter
7. This is God's covenant with David. David wanted to build a house
for Jehovah. He had conquered all his enemies.
Remember, Solomon was the least warlike. David was a man of war
and defeated everybody who ever came up against him. From the
time he was a young man defeating Goliath, the Philistine giant,
He defeated all his enemies. And the Lord's people had many
enemies who came in against them. And when they did, David was
a man of war and defeated all the enemies. And consequently,
Israel had peace all around. David brought the peace, then
turned the kingdom over to Solomon. But David, after having conquered
his enemies, at a time when we're told that gold was as plentiful
in Jerusalem as the stones in the street, he had amassed all
this fortune, and he said, I'm going to build God a house. And
he said, Nathan, what do you think? Nathan said, yeah, go
ahead. And so Nathan being the prophet,
and then Nathan went home and the Lord said, Nathan, no, no,
you go back and tell him he's not building me a house. I'm
going to build him a house. So Nathan is going back to David
to tell him, the Lord has made a covenant with you. And no,
he's not gonna let you build a house. He's gonna let your
son do that. He's gonna build you a house. And so this is the
context of 2 Samuel chapter seven. But notice here, in fact, that
verse 11, verse 11. Since the time that I commanded
judges to be over my people Israel, and have caused you to rest from
all your enemies, and also the Lord tells you that he will make
you a house. Now verse 12, when your days
are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your
seed after you who will come from your body. I will do this,
Jehovah said, you will die But when you die, your son or one
of your sons will be established. And immediately, that was Solomon. When David died, Solomon immediately
fulfilled this promise. because he said Jehovah has fulfilled
his word which he spoke and I have filled the position of my father
David and sit on the throne of Israel as Jehovah promised. Now this promise, this prophecy
was fulfilled eventually in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Peter tells us, therefore, in
Acts 2 verse 30, Therefore David, being a prophet, and knowing
that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his
body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ
to sit on his throne, he foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection
of the Christ. And if you'll read Matthew chapter
1, you'll find that the genealogy of Jesus Christ is given, traced
all the way back to Abraham through David, and lo and behold, what
do you find? There's Solomon's name. Jesus
descended directly from Solomon. And had not the Romans been in
control of Palestine at that time, Jesus would have been on
the throne of Israel by physical descent, having been having the
throne and the royalty passed on down through David and through
Solomon, but the Romans had conquered and even before that during the
time of the Maccabees and others, and the kings of, or the one
who would have been the king was no longer the king, but Solomon
was, in all his glory. And Jesus Christ fulfilled this
prophecy as well. Number 11, in both Solomon and
Christ, God fulfilled his promise to David in 2 Samuel 7, 13a,
that he shall build a house for my name. And Solomon did build
that house. We call it the Solomonic Temple. It was a wonder. It was called
one of the ancient wonders, or the wonders of the ancient world.
And Jesus Christ has Fulfilled this promise because his people
are a holy temple in the Lord notice where we are a holy temple
in the Lord in whom you also are being built
together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. And then Solomon is a type of
Christ in the fact that in both Solomon and Christ, God filled
his promise to David in 2 Samuel 7, 14, that I will be his father
and he shall be my son. And Solomon said he fulfilled
it, he fulfilled it, and When the day when Jesus was presented
to Israel at the beginning of his ministry, God thundered down
from heaven saying, that's my son. I am well pleased with him. And in the book of Hebrews chapter
1, Jehovah says, he is my son and I am his father. So, the
point that I'm stressing to you is that when you read the Song
of Solomon, he is the writer of it, not the author. The Holy
Spirit is the author, but he is the inspired writer and penman,
but he's representing Jesus Christ. When you read of Solomon in this
book, think of Christ. And furthermore, surely in Christ
a greater than Solomon is here. All right. We're looking now
at how Christ is portrayed in this song. You can still follow along in
your synopsis or the outline. Christ in this song is the king. Solomon was a king, and that
is a description that is given of him. You can look up the references
later. Jesus Christ is the king, not
merely the king, king of kings, Lord of lords, the king of the
saints, king of all the kings of the earth. Furthermore, Solomon
was a shepherd. He's a shepherd in the sense
that that though he was the king, he did have lands and fields
and other places where he kept sheep, and those were his sheep. And here in this instance, he
is going to one of those places to visit his sheep, physical
sheep, because he was a shepherd. Then we find in this book that
Christ is my beloved. About 25 times he is called my
beloved. That is a term of endearment. My beloved, not merely a beloved. My beloved, the one that I love
so dearly. 25 times. Now notice that this
is the Shulamite calling him my beloved. In chapter five, verse 16, she
calls him my friend. You know, a lot of people, a
lot of women have husbands, and they may say, you know, he's
my beloved, but he's not really much of a friend. Perhaps, not
speaking of anyone here, I'm sure, but perhaps somewhere there
is such a one as that. Well, here she says, not only
is he my lover, he is my friend. And we know him as a friend who
sticks closer than a brother, a friend who is there at all
times. That's what she called him. Number five, she calls him
a bundle of myrrh between my breasts. in chapter 1, verse
13. And notice the plurality in bundle. When you find Christ described
in plural terms, you'll find that it speaks of his magnificence
and of the greatness that he is. She says, he is a bundle
of myrrh between my breasts and denoting their relationship when
they slept. She says, he and I do not go
to opposite ends of the bed. He sleeps between my breasts,
meaning next to my heart, and he is there like a bundle of
myrrh. The sweet fragrance of Christ
is there. And I would add that this book,
because of such terms as these, has even some high schools and
other schools have said it is pornography and should not be.
read, well, okay, if you've got such a mind as that, go ahead.
But to children of God, I tell you what, it is a glorious picture
of love when the church of Christ says, I hold him in my heart. And that's what she says. And
I find him there like a bundle of myrrh, sweet and fragrant. Then number six, she says, he
is a cluster of henna blooms in the vineyards of En-Gaddai. a cluster, notice the plural
again. Henna was a beautiful flower. Vineyards are a fruitful place
and Engadi was a lovely and garden place west of the Dead Sea. Now
remember that west of the Dead Sea, that's where the country
of Jordan is. Now it's wilderness and desert
and dry and arid, but Solomon had gone up and made a place,
a garden, terraced it off. and had a beautiful garden, and
she is thinking about him, and she says, you know what, he is,
what is it, a cluster of henna blooms, note the plurality, in
the vineyards, note the plurality of engedi. And then she says,
he is an apple tree among the trees of the woods, an apple
tree, known for its sweet fragrance and its sweet fruit, and it is
domesticated. But the woods of the, or the
trees of the woods, they're wild, do whatever they, well, they're
not known for their sweet fragrance, they're not known for their beautiful
and sweet fruit. Well, she is comparing her husband,
Jesus Christ, to the most beautiful tree there can be in the midst
of some ordinary ones. I think she had a high opinion
of him. Chapter two, verse seven, and
in two other places, she calls him love. Notice, in these times,
she did not call him my love. She said, he is love. He is love itself. That should not surprise us.
God is love, Christ is love, and that's what his church knows
him as. Then she also calls him my love,
my fair one. And she also calls him the one
I love. Who is Jesus Christ to you? Is
he the one you love? We sing Jesus, lover of my soul. Let me to thy bosom fly. The lover of our soul. He's our
lover and we are his lover. And we with Jesus Christ, we're
lovers. We're lovers. We're the foremost
lovers this world will ever know. the church of Christ with her
husband. Then Christ's wife in this song
is fairest among women. He looks upon her and he says,
you know, he says, I have seen all the women of this world and
I looked at you and I thought, there's the most beautiful. She
is, she is. Jesus looks upon his church in
this world and he says, I have seen all the women of this world. I have seen Babylon, the mother
of harlots. I have seen this religion and
that sect and that denomination and I have looked upon my church
and said, she's the fairest of all. He calls her, my love. She called him that, he called
her that. He calls her the rose of Sharon
and the lily of the valleys. Well, now this is interesting
because A hymn writer said that he's the lily of the valley.
If you read carefully, this is Christ speaking to her. She is the rose of Sharon. She is the lily of the valley. And then he says, a lily among
thorns. We use the term, a rose among
thorns. Well, he uses the term, a lily
among thorns. He looks around and he says,
you know what? I have seen this and that and
the other and it's all just a briar patch and a bunch of thorns and
in the very middle of it, there's a lily. That's what the world
is to Jesus Christ. It is a thorny place, thorns
and briars being the result of sin and the result of the Adamic
curse. Well, in the midst of this Adamic
curse, with briars and thorns rising all over, there is a lily
in the midst of it. And Jesus says, that's my church,
that's my Shulamite. He calls her my dove, a peaceful
bird, a clean bird. What was the bird that Noah let
out of the ark when he got the result? It was not the raven.
It feeds on carrion and dead flesh and would not come back. He sent out the dove and the
dove comes back with a twig to let him know peace is here. Then he calls her my spouse.
Then he calls her my sister's spouse. Now, if you'll notice
those instances, chapter four, verse nine, verse 10, verse 12,
and chapter five, verse one, you'll notice that our King James
Version calls it my sister, my spouse, but you'll notice that
the word spouse, pardon me, my before spouse is in italics,
added by the translators. they thought it would make sense.
Well, it's not the best way to express it. Solomon says she
is my sister spouse. She is my sisterly spouse. And by that he means that she
is no longer my betrothed engaged to me, she is now mine. Then he calls her a garden enclosed. Locate Song of Solomon chapter
four, verse 12. My beloved and I were married
on 25th of June. No, that's not, 19th of June.
Okay. I know the year, 1975. May? Oh, your birthday's the
17th of June. Okay, folks, I digress. And I'm sorry, I'm in trouble. Where'd I say turn to? Song of Solomon, chapter four,
verse nine. I made that mistake worse than
before, or worse than that on a previous occasion. 17th of
June's the birthday. 1966. Okay. On the day we were married, afternoon,
my brother, and he was to participate in the wedding, and he preached
that morning in the church my father pastored, and we were
members of the church, but my brother lived elsewhere. He came
and preached that morning, and his message was taken from Song
of Solomon, and in chapter four, and in verse number 12. A garden enclosed is my sister's
spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Your plants are an orchard
of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, fragrant henna with spacknard,
spacknard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all the trees
of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices, a
fountain of gardens, a well of living waters and streams from
Lebanon. This is Solomon's description
of his wife. He says a garden enclosed. Now
what had he done? He found a place where he wanted
a garden and he went and put a wall around it. And he chose
a place that had a spring coming up. and he built a cistern for
the spring. And he went and gathered all
the weeds out, took all the weeds and everything he did not want,
and then he brought in everything he wanted, saffron and calamus
and the spices and the plants and the trees, and he put them
inside this walled-in area with this spring, which no one could
get to, sealed up. And the cistern is sealed up.
It's all shut up to him. He says, it's mine. Nobody goes
into this garden but me. No one partakes of the fruit
of this garden but me. This is Christ speaking of his
church. No one but him comes into her. And this is the description that
is given of her. A garden enclosed, a spring shut
up, a fountain sealed. He calls her my perfect one.
He calls her my beloveds. Pardon me, she is his beloveds. and he calls her Princess Daughter,
though born a commoner, born of God and therefore of nobility
spiritually, and he calls her O Love. Okay, there is an overview
of this book. I'll let you read that on your
own. Bear in mind this book is not written in chronological
order, and we're gonna be following more or less that outline of
this book. that you have there in your synopsis. I'm gonna close with this following
historical background adapted from H.A. Ironside and addresses
on the Song of Solomon as summarized by Merrill Unger in Unger's Bible
Handbook. Here it is. I'm not gonna read
the scripture references. You have them there before you.
King Solomon had a vineyard in the hill country of Ephraim,
about 50 miles north of Jerusalem. He letted out the keepers consisting
of a mother, two sons, and two daughters, the Shulamite and
a little sister. The Shulamite was the Cinderella
of the family, naturally beautiful but unnoticed. Her brothers were
likely half-brothers. They made her work very hard,
tending the vineyards, so that she had little opportunity to
care for her personal appearance. She pruned the vines and set
traps for the little foxes. She also kept the flocks. Being
out in the open so much, she became sunburned. One day a handsome
stranger came to the vineyard. It was Solomon disguised. He
showed an interest in her and she became embarrassed concerning
her personal appearance. She took him for a shepherd and
asked about his flocks. He answered evasively but also
spoke loving words to her and promised rich gifts for the future. He won her heart and left with
the promise that someday he would return. She dreamed of him at
night and sometimes thought he was near. Finally, he did return
in all his kingly splendor to make her his bride. If that is
not a beautiful picture of Christ and his church, then I do not
know what one is. That's it. O God, our Father,
be pleased, we pray, to bless this word. and be pleased, we pray, to bless
our study of this relationship of love between Christ and His
church. To your glory in Jesus' name
we pray, amen. You are dismissed.