your Bibles to the Song of Songs,
Chapter 8. I'm making no promises, but I'm
going to try to finish the book this morning, for all of it goes
together. Lord Jesus, enable us to enter
into this scripture as a means to see you and to delight in
your presence and in the display of your glory. And may we also learn what attitudes
we are to have towards you. In the name of Christ, we pray
it. Amen. Now, as with much of this book,
the passage before us, which begins in verse 8, cannot be
understood apart from having some cultural understanding of
the marriage practices of the ancient Near East. Now, in the
passage, we have two females, a prepubescent girl, a young
girl, and a fully mature woman. And the fully mature woman is
Shulamith, from which we've heard a lot so far. Now, it may seem
strange to bring up a young girl in the context of a poetic drama. But the very purpose of this
particular section is to show to us that the relationship between
God and his people is always one of love, but the manner And
the expression of that love, or the demonstration of that
love, is different at different times, appropriate to the maturity
of the person involved. Now, there is never a mention
of a young boy in the Song of Songs. And why is that? Well,
the male lead here represents God, particularly God in Christ. And in his relationship with
his people, he is never a boy. He is fully mature. He was fully
mature before the world began. So we don't have to deal with
how do, quote, boys, young boys, fit into this story. But God's
people, whether they are represented in the nation of Israel, or in
the church of the Lord Jesus are often referred to at various
stages of maturity. Moreover, the characteristic
of the love that they share with God changes with the increased
maturity of God's people, both individually and collectively. For example, God is often represented
to us as a father to little children. That's one of the relationships
he bears toward us, a father to a child. As a father pities
his children, so does the Lord pity them who fear him. He knows
we are dust. just as a good father takes into
account the weaknesses and frailties of their children and doesn't
deal with them as he would adults, but is compassionate and forgiving
and patient and tolerant. Anybody who's been a parent knows
what I'm talking about. Well, that's how he is to his young
ones. And then God is often represented
or sometimes represented as the wife, excuse me, husband to his
wife. In particular is our Lord Jesus
Christ presented in this particular thing. Now, that's a loving relationship,
isn't it? But it's an entirely different
kind of loving relationship. There are some of the categories
of fatherhood in terms of, in some respects, an all-consuming
love, and protection and provision. Christ has that as our husband,
but there's more. Primarily, the more consists
in what we are able to enter into with him and the depths
of the love that we can experience with him. Now, he doesn't change. We do. And so here we have the
description of, like I said, two females. And as I see this
scripture, both of them represent the people of God. But they represent
the people of God in different conditions. Now in verses 6 and
7, Shulamith has spoken of the power and the durability of love. He says, love is as strong as
the grave. Love, or the jealousy that love
produces. And jealousy is not a bad thing.
Envy is. If you understand jealousy and
envy, jealousy is fine. That is wanting to keep what
is yours. Envy is wanting what other people
have. But love is always jealous of
its object. Now, all that she has said of
love throughout the book has been from the perspective of
a grown woman, fully desirous of and capable of the fullness
of marital love. All that we've seen in this book,
so far as a female presence is concerned, it's been a grown
woman seeking, desiring, and even engaging in the marital
love suitable only for married adults. So this begs the question,
what about the immature? What shall be done for them?
Now verse 8 presents us with what is obviously a young girl,
a girl who has not yet reached the age of puberty. It says here
in verse 8, we have a young sister, and her breasts are not grown.
What shall we do for our sister for the day she is spoken for? So, Puberty doesn't come at the same
age for everyone, but it takes the same direction for everyone
in transforming someone to a child and to a woman, a female child
to a woman or a male child into a man, contrary to what's being
promoted in our day. You stay the same gender you
started with. But here, it's talking about females. Now, a young girl. has everything
a woman has, but it's not mature. And here, it's specifically with
regard to the breasts and how they're formed in a mature woman. She's described this way. That
is, it's being spoken of in these terms. You know, what shall we
do for our young sister? Well, how do you know she's a
young sister and just not a small woman? Her breasts are not yet
grown. And that is used as a sign of
childhood simply because when it comes to the distinction between
a child and a woman, that's the most publicly obvious one there
is. And we don't, in our culture,
you know, we don't talk about these things very much, not in
open anyway, not in mixed groups and all that. The scripture didn't
have any problem with it. You see, human bodies and human
sexuality, God has never viewed those things as dirty or filthy. We're the ones that make them
that way. By our sinfulness, we may approach them in an unclean
and sinful fashion. But that's simply because human
beings corrupt everything they touch. But God does not look
upon the human body, which, by the
way, he made, he doesn't look upon it as a shameful thing in
and of itself. And therefore, to talk about
it, he doesn't get embarrassed. And he doesn't get, he's the
one that has the whole process of what it's like to go from
a child to an adult and all of that. And it's fine to speak
about it because the Lord did. So anyway, so here is this young girl, nine, 10 years old, something
like that. And then the next line seems really strange in
our culture. What shall we do for our sister
for the day she is spoken for? Now remember, the whole book
is within the context of marital love up to and including its
sexual expression. Why would you talk about a girl
of 9 or 10 being spoken for in that context. Well, they didn't do marriage
the same way we do it. They split it into betrothal
and marriage. And we have engagement in marriage,
but it's not quite the same thing as betrothal, actually. Betrothal
was an actual legal standing. Marriage back then was more often
an arranged thing. Parents arranged the marriages
of their children. In fact, in India, these things
are arranged while their children are still children. Families
get together, probably most importantly, the fathers come together, and
they want to unite the families. And so here's a five-year-old
boy and a four-year-old girl, you know. He says, well, I've
got a son. I've got a daughter. OK. Let's enter in to at least an
expectation that these two shall be married when they are grown.
And there can even be ceremonies surrounding that, or papers signed,
or whatever. Now, different cultures have
done this at different stages of life. But even in some cultures,
grown men may become betrothed to young girls. I remember back
when, in the early 2000s, when there was all this investigation
of Islam, you know, they were wanting to call Mohammed a pedophile because
they said he had a nine-year-old wife. And that certainly does
sound creepy to us. And I haven't looked into it
to investigate it. But understanding that in that
culture, what that can mean is that there was a nine-year-old
girl whose father had consented for Mohammed to be one of his
wives at the appropriate time. And that's what's being spoken
of here. Particularly could this be seen in situations such as
with Solomon. Remember, it said he had 700
wives and 300 concubines, and often these were political arrangements.
Nonetheless, grown men would be betrothed to young girls,
but it was not expected. did that young girl actually
enter into a marriage with him. That is, the fullness of marriage.
It was a betrothal with the expectation of marriage. She likely would
stay in her father's household till she was grown up, and then
there would be a marriage. So here when it's saying, we
have a young sister, her breasts are not yet grown, what shall
we do for our sister for the day she is spoken for? Now what
they're talking about here, the day she is spoken for. Often
these betrothals had a ritual or ceremony attached to them.
And the young girl would be presented. She is being betrothed to this
boy or man or whatever the culture is saying. She's being betrothed.
What shall we do for her? Well, here's what they say. Verse nine. If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver
on her. Now go down to verse 10. This
is Shulamith speaking, a grown woman. I am a wall, and my breasts
are like towers. Now, she's not boasting about
the size of her breasts or anything. That has nothing to do with it.
It's just they protrude. Here's what she's saying. I'm
a grown woman. Well, what are you going to do
for this young girl when she's presented as one who will become
the wife? of a grown man, we will build
towers of silver on her. The first part of the answer is that
she would be presented in a way that speaks not of what she is,
but of what she will become. Now, It talks about, we will
build her towers of silver. This need not be something that
actually protrudes from the chest, like they made some kind of a
bra made out of silver or something. That's not what they're talking
about. It might have just been little things of silver that
were sewn into her clothing or whatever. But what it did was,
even though she was a little girl, It pointed out the fact
that she would become a grown woman. That's what it's saying. That's what I believe it's saying
here. And this is a picture of God's people. It's a picture
of us. We have been born into the kingdom
of God, but as I see the application of this scripture, we are yet
young. And while God loves us and we
have been betrothed to him, we are not yet ready for the full
aspects of marriage. But that's how we are presented
to God. He sees us as perfected. He views us as having already
achieved the maturity, even though we haven't, because we are presented
that way. And therefore, God has both fatherly
affections for us, as would be fit a man's care for his young daughter,
And yet also, because God, who doesn't really exist in time,
it's we that go through the phases of time, he also sees us as a
fully grown woman, ready for the fullness of marriage. Now,
we won't experience that until the proper time. Do you remember
how, I believe it's twice now, we've come across that verse here in the Song of Solomon,
where it says, I charge you not to awaken love until it desires,
or as one translation put it, until it's ready. There is a
proper time for the expression of all kinds of love. And since
they were talking about erotic love or marital love, they were
saying, don't stir that up until it's time. There will be a time. But in dressing this girl up
this way, this young girl, as she is presented and spoken for,
a betrothal agreement is made concerning her. Here's what she
is saying. I am now a young girl, but someday
I will be a grown woman, suitable for you to marry and enjoy all
that marriage has to offer. And then secondly, she said,
what will we do for our young sister? First of all, we will
present her not as she is, but as she will be. Secondly, we
will protect her until the proper time. It says, if she is a door,
we will enclose her with panels of cedar. Now, I looked up the
word door, and it means door or is just a portal. It can mean
door as something with gates. But it's used figuratively to
describe, as the reference work I was using, so politely puts,
an accessible woman. And so they say what they're
referring to here is that they are going to protect her virginity. That's what they're speaking
of. said, if she is a door, we will enclose her. We will protect
her. She is now betrothed to this
man, and none other shall approach her. She will never be betrothed
to another. We will protect her that no rapist
gets to her. And even if she is of a nature
that she might go out and promiscuously offer herself to others, we're
not going to allow that either. Now, this is how things were
done back then. And these girls were watched. They were cared
for. Now, we don't hear about it so
much in the Jewish nation these days, but we do hear you know,
some echoes of this in the Arab cultures. Women are not even,
you know, unmarried women. They can't go out in public without
a brother or a father with them. Why? They're protected. They're being protected. And
in showing how men, and men I mean by this human beings, can corrupt
anything. If a girl, now this normally happens, evidently,
just back in the more rural areas of these Islamic nations. But if she is, say, raped, that
is such a dishonor to the family. Why? Because they didn't keep
her protected. That was their job, and they
failed. And in a total distortion of justice, protect the honor
of the family, they kill her. Isn't that horrible? But nonetheless,
you can see the concept here. These friends, friends of this
young girl, they said, we will present her as a grown woman
and we will protect her until she really is one. Now, If you'll
look over in Ezekiel chapter 16, I'll show you that these,
you know, this is how these things were considered back in those
days. Tell you what, we don't have to go there, right? We'll
run out of time. Just go over to 2 Corinthians
11. And we'll see this within its
New Testament concept. And what I believe is certainly
being illustrated here. Well, unfortunately I've written
down the wrong verse. Hang on just a second, I think
I can find it quick. Okay, I put 12, it's 2. My thumb must have hit two keys,
or my finger. In verse 2, Paul is speaking
to the Corinthians and he says, I am jealous for you with a godly
jealousy. I promised you to one husband. That's a betrothal. I promised you to one husband,
to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. What's Paul saying? I came and
preached the gospel to you, and as such, through the grace
of the Spirit of God who opened your eyes and caused you to see
the gospel and believe, in some sense I was acting as an agent
for God himself in finding a wife for his son, just like Abraham's
servant was sent out to find a wife for Isaac. And he said, through preaching
the gospel, I made this agreement, and you have been betrothed to
Christ. And my follow-up ministry, first
my ministry was to find you, And now that the betrothal has
taken place, you're yet young. You're not ready for the marriage
yet, but you're still his. And now it is my job to do all
within my power to see to it that from now until then, you
remain pure, devoted, chaste, virgin in spiritual matters. Now, as for me, I think that
is a beautiful illustration. You know, what we saw in Song
of Solomon, and that gives us an understanding of the cultural
context in which those words were spoken. And then it goes,
it's further revealed, or at least the somewhat literal version
of it is revealed here in 2 Corinthians 11 too. Brothers and sisters, you and
I have been betrothed to the Lord Jesus Christ. In the book
of Revelation, it speaks of the marriage feast of the Lamb. That
hasn't happened yet. We aren't married. We're betrothed. We are yet immature. Now Christ
beholds us as we will be, not as we are. Yet he treats us as
we really are. in terms of his care through
the ministers that he sends to us. And their goal, with regard
to any believer, with regard to any who have been betrothed
to Christ through their ministry, is to see to it that neither
by invasion from the outside or from corruption on the inside
that they are defiled. Now, we know that all of us are
defiled with sin. That's not what he's talking
about. You can't keep people from sinning. I can't keep me
from sinning. I don't know how I'd ever keep you from sinning.
What's he talking about? That we would be completely,
in our hearts, devoted to him, worshiping no other, seeking
help from no other source, finding the authority for truth
no other place but him. recognizing he is our head, he
is our king, he is our Lord, and we will not bow to anyone
else if it means that we somehow are going to have to give them
a higher position than Christ. And as a minister of the gospel,
as a pastor of a congregation, of course it's my job to try
to fulfill that for you. And I do this by preaching, by
directing you to Christ over and over and over again. You
can imagine if one of these betrothed girls, maybe she gets into puberty
and she starts getting interested in boys, you know, and whatnot,
and she's seen some that are pretty handsome, you know, and
is getting distracted. What would be a good thing to
do? Pull out a picture of the one she's been betrothed to.
You remember him? Look at that, isn't he handsome? And you know, that boy you're
thinking about, yeah, he's OK, but who knows what he's going
to turn out to be. And he doesn't own a thing. This fellow you're
betrothed to, he has unsearchable riches. And he sought you out. And he has made a place for you. And all that is his is yours. Do you really think that kid
over there can match that? And Paul would do that. He constantly
set forth the glory of Christ, and that was what protected them
from wandering hither and yon. Well, now let's get to Shulamith.
She says, I am a wall and my breasts are
like towers, thus I have become in his eyes like one bringing
contentment. This is twofold in its direction. What is she saying? I am a full-grown
woman. I'm ready for this. I'm ready
for marriage. I am ready and I desire to be
joined with my lover in the most intimate way possible. And she
says, and now that I have matured into a woman, I have become,
in his eyes, like one bringing contentment. In other words,
when he sees her, he's saying, she's ready. I've loved her with an everlasting
love. I chose her before the world began. I spoke for her. by sending my spirit to go and
get her and bind her heart to me. And now it's time. It's time for marriage. Then Shulamith says something
that just seems just clear out of the blue. Solomon had a vineyard
in Baal Haimon. He let out his vineyard to tenants. Each was to bring for its fruit
1,000 shekels of silver. But my own vineyard, and this
is still Shulamith speaking, my own vineyard is mine to give. The 1,000 shekels are for you,
O Solomon, and 200 are for those who tend its fruit." What's she
saying? She's saying, Solomon, he has
a lot of vineyards he owns. And he has hired tenants to take
care of it. But they have an obligation to
pay him 1,000 shekels, and they can have what's left. I don't think I'm stretching
too far to say this is an illustration of the Jewish nation. Why? Because while they were certainly
in a privileged position in this world, God never did give the
nation an inheritance that will not spoil nor fade away. They were workers in his vineyard. They must labor, and then they
must give to him the fruit of their labor. And then they could keep farming.
But that vineyard would never be theirs. Now what does Shulamith say?
But my own vineyard is mine to give. What is her vineyard? Herself. And what does she say? Well,
I'm going to rent it out to tenants and they got to pay me a thousand
shekels of silver every year. She says, my own vineyard is
mine to give. Yes, all of us belong to God
because he created us. All of us belong to God or to
Christ. That is, all of us who've been
redeemed by him because he's bought us with a price. But we
still understand that here we are and God has given us life. God has given us existence. In
a sense, we own ourselves and we are Ours to give. And so she says, the thousand
shekels are for you, O Solomon. I could have kept them. They
were mine because they came from my vineyard. But I give myself
lock, stock, and barrel to you. All that I am, all that I have,
such as it is, Solomon, it's yours. He says, I'll give 200
for those who tend its fruit. I could not help to think, well,
in some sense, that might be a person like me. She's saying,
1,000 are for you, Solomon. It's like you own me. But I still
have to pay the people that take care of me. And here I am. I labor in God's vineyard. And you all who are his vineyard,
You take care of me, but you give yourself to Christ. I think it's wonderful when people
have love and respect for those that lead them. I have seen,
even among honest believers, way too much commitment to preachers
rather than Christ. I appreciate very much You're
all's expressions of love toward me, the expressions of love you
have for me in terms of taking care of me and my wife, of coming
here week by week and listening, of thanking me for the sermons,
even though anything good in them came from God. But you should never have the
attitude that you can't get by without me. The Lord was taking care of you
before I ever got here. And when I am gone, he won't
have any more trouble then than now. Don't give yourselves to me.
And I don't believe you do. But don't give yourselves to
me. Give yourselves to him. And then she says, you who dwell
in the gardens with friends in attendance, let me hear your
voice. That's the man speaking. That's
Solomon. Our God, our Lord, Jesus Christ,
wants to hear from us in praise and prayer. And then here's the
last bit of the book. What does she say? Come away,
my lover, and be like a gazelle, or like a young stag on the spice-laden
mountains. Now what's she saying? Well,
up here she said, I'm full grown. I'm ready. Come." And what did the Apostle John
say? Even so, come, Lord Jesus. There's a lot of things I like
about this life. I'm not really ready to give
them up. but oh, to be fully grown and see my heavenly husband. Is that not what we long for
more than anything else? And while we can learn to be
content in our youthful stage, betrothed but not ready for marriage, but we're not satisfied. will
be satisfied when we're with Him. Not just in our minds held by
Him, but in the full reality of whatever the spiritual reality
is behind these expressions of marital love that we found in
Song of Solomon. To have that. Even so, come Lord. Get your betrothed. And let's have a wedding. You're
dismissed.