The Song of Solomon, chapter
1. We'll begin reading at verse
5, and I'll read through verse 8. Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters
of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains
of Solomon. Do not stare at me because I
am dark, because I am darkened by the sun. My mother's sons
were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards. My
own vineyard I have neglected. Tell me, you whom I love, where
you graze your flock and where you rest your sheep at midday. Why should I be like a veiled
woman beside the flocks of your friends? If you do not know most
beautiful of women, follow the tracks of the sheep and graze
your young goats by the tents of the shepherds. Okay, let's
pray. Our Lord Jesus, thank you for
this opportunity to meet today. Pray that you'll be with us,
that you will drive from our minds all distracting thoughts.
Make yourself known to us. In Christ's name we pray, amen. Now, I've entitled this particular
lesson, The Shulamites Self-Description, but it goes farther than that,
but that's how it begins. Dark am I, yet lovely, O daughters
of Jerusalem, dark like the tents of Kedar, like the tent curtains
of Solomon. Now, this has nothing to do with
race. I remember at one point I thought
it did because I had not read very carefully. She's just darkly
tanned, which is what you find out in the next verse. She's
been out in the sun working, so she's dark. And there is, you know, the racial
things, you know, in our day, our nation is just obsessed with
racial issues. I don't know that the world was
as obsessed with it back at this time. Certainly, Solomon had
wives that were dark because of their race, and I hate to
use that word. There's really only one race. It's the human
race, and we look different, and that doesn't mean anything.
He may have had some Oriental wives, but the point here isn't
race, and she's not bringing that up. But what she is bringing
up is that she does not look like what others expected she
would. She says, dark I am, yet lovely,
O daughters of Jerusalem. Now, who is she addressing? Well,
if we take the Shulamite, as we have been so far, to be a
description of the church as a single body, the daughters
of Jerusalem, are the individual members of the church. And so
it's as though the individual members are surprised at how
the church, the whole body of the church, looks. And so she says, yes, I am dark,
but I am lovely. dark like the tents of Kedar,
like the tent curtains of Solomon. Now, nearly everyone says that
this is the Shulamite, you know, as the church confessing that
it is sinful in itself, but lovely, or I think the King James says,
comely, by virtue of the comeliness of the Lord. I don't believe
that's what's being spoken of here, and here's why. Look over
at Isaiah chapter one. Isaiah chapter one, verse 18. Come now, let us reason together,
says the Lord. This is Isaiah 118. Though your
sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they
are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. The Bible doesn't
speak of sin in terms of black or dark. It speaks of sin in
terms of being red, brilliant, bright red, like blood. And, um, I recall when I was, um, well,
when I was a kid, we used to sing this song called the wordless
book song because the little children's organization that
my mother was involved with had what they called the wordless
book. And it was just books in the pages were colored, just
colors, no words on them. And the first one was black.
and that was to represent our sin. And the wordless book song
says, you know, my heart was dark with sin until the Savior
came in. And the next page was red. His
precious blood I know has washed me white as snow. And then a
gold page. And in God's word I'm told I'll
walk the streets of gold. And then you turn it as green.
To grow in Christ each day I read my Bible and pray. But they said
sin was black. And then I remember in college,
The professor for childhood education in the church says, don't call
sin black. Says, you might have black children in your class. There are people that we call
red, though they really don't look red, but there are no people
that are scarlet and crimson. Or we could say all of us are.
And so when she says I'm black, but comely, she's not saying
I'm sinful, but righteous in Christ. I believe what she is saying
here, she's saying certainly that the way she looks is not
the way the individuals expected she would look. And you know, individual members
of churches often find fault with the church. because the church doesn't look
like what individual members think it should. And maybe it's false, they're
pointing out, but it also may simply be, and I think this is
more apt to describe it, the church does not look glorious,
powerful, significant in the eyes of the world. We consider that we worship the
Lord of the universe. How come it seems we have no
more influence in this world than we do? And so here is this
woman and she's saying, I'm not what you expected. Now here's
another reason that I don't think this has anything to do with
sin because she says she's dark like the tent curtains of Solomon.
So she relates her darkness to something pertaining to Solomon. Well, Solomon wouldn't have anything
that was sinful here. So what she is telling these
individuals is, there's a reason that I am dark. She goes, I'm
darkened by the sun. You know, the book of Ecclesiastes
often says, It talks about life under the sun. And it says that
life under the sun is vain. Now that understanding the phrase
under the sun, what that means, you need to know that in order
to understand what Solomon is saying in the book of Ecclesiastes. And under the sun means life
without consideration of God. In other words, they just saw
here I am on the earth and the sun was as far out as they could
see. So they figured anything beyond the sun was God. But if
all there is to life is that which occurs under the sun, then
life is vain, it's meaningless. You're just like any other animal.
You're born, you live, you die, and it means nothing. Okay, the church. While it acknowledges
there is a God, there is something beyond the sun, and that life
is not vain. She yet lives under the sun as
well. As she worships her Lord, she's
still under the sun. As she Seeks her Lord, as we'll
see down here in verse seven. She's still under the sun. She's
affected by the things that go on in this natural world, just
like everybody else. Notice she says, my mother's
sons were angry with me and made me take care of the vineyards,
my own yard, vineyard, I have neglected. Now, what is she saying
here? Well, who are her mother's sons? It's funny, she didn't say my
father's sons. She said mother. And I think here she's making
reference to the natural people of the world. You know, it was
common for people to have multiple spouses. And so, you know, you,
there was a lot of half brothers and half sisters. And so she
would have brothers. in the sense that they shared
the same mother, but they didn't have the same father. Nonetheless,
as sons, they were more powerful within that family. And they
did not like her. Why? She was from another father.
And so what did they do? They made her go out and work,
work in their vineyards. She had no choice in the matter. She's dark because she's been
sent out to work in the sun, and she was sent out because
her mother's brothers, the natural people of this world, were angry
with her and used her to their advantage. And she says, you made me take
care of the vineyards, and then she goes, my own vineyard I have
neglected. Now, I don't know that she's
complaining. What I'm seeing her saying is,
I'm darkly tanned like this, not because I was trying to advance
my own causes, taking care of my own vineyard to get rich or
whatever. I got sent out to do other stuff
for other people. And that is somewhat how the
church is in this world. After all, we live here, we're
under the sun, we have jobs. And when we profess ourselves
to be the bride of the king, quite often the people of this
world become angry with us and will place upon us extra burdens. And we become dark, not sinfully
dark, but maybe surprisingly dark. And why would that have
been surprising? Well, among those that are naturally
light-skinned and in the royal households of the light-skinned,
the women were especially prized if they were pale of skin. And
royalty didn't go out. And the women, if they did go
out, they were just almost completely covered. Now, what is she saying here?
What's she revealing here? She may be the bride of the king,
but she did not come from royalty. If she had been a natural born
princess, she never would have been sent to the vineyards. And we, who are of the bride
of Christ. We are his queen, so to speak,
but we weren't born royal, were we? We're commoners. We're by nature, just like the
children of wrath. Our mother's brothers, by nature,
we're no different than them. And so she's saying, don't be
surprised that I'm dark. I'm dark because I worked, had
to. I wasn't working in order to
neglect the one who loves me. It's just
the way things are. I worked because it was put upon
me. And you might be surprised that
I'm not royal, but that's the king's way. What did Paul say
in 1 Corinthians? You see, you're calling an election,
brethren. Not many, and he goes on and lists the things that
the world prizes. He says, not many of you are
like that. Rather, you are what the world
despises. And sadly, we who are the individual
members of the church because we still have this fleshly nature
in us are sometimes surprised when the church does not appear
royal in this world. Then the Shulamite asks, tell
me you whom I love where you graze your flock and where you
rest your sheep at midday. Why should I be like a veiled
woman beside the flocks of your friends? So she's calling on
Solomon, calling on her beloved one, says, tell me where you
graze your flock. That's where I wanna be. I like
this, where you rest your sheep at midday. You know, the schedule
that we operate here in the Western world, certainly the modern Western
world, is different from what they used to do nearly everywhere
in antiquity. In the middle of the day, everybody
rested. And they still do in those areas that are especially
hot. Now we think, you know, we divide
our day up and say, hey, it's nine to five, you know, you go
to work, or seven to whatever. You go to work, and this is the
time you work, and it doesn't matter what it's doing, you keep
working. You can do that, but if your
work is mostly manual labor, well, that puts you out under
the sun, right in the middle of the day, baking hot, working
yourself when you should be resting. But that's our hurry up, you
know, type of culture. In fact, I heard that, you know,
a couple hundred years ago, that people didn't sleep in a single
chunk. It was normal that they'd go
to bed and probably three or four hours later, they'd wake
up. And instead of laying there in bed, tossing and turning,
trying to get back to sleep, they would get up for a while,
maybe as much as a couple of hours. And then they go back
to bed and then sleep until it was time to get up. One reason
probably, once it got dark, there wasn't a whole lot you could
do. And people would go ahead and go to bed. But the point
was, this schedule that you and I are familiar with is kind of
a modern day thing. And so she's saying, where do
you graze your flock? I want to be with them. Where
do you rest your sheep at midday? When the sun is at its hottest.
Remember, it's the sun that made her dark. She wants to know where to rest
in midday. Then she says, why should I be
like a veiled woman? That simply means a covered woman. So if a woman went out to do
work in the middle of the day, if she wanted to preserve lighter
skin or whatever, what'd she have to do? She had to cover
herself. Just like us, I mean, you know,
they advise you, well, you put on sunscreen, but they didn't
have such a thing then. The only sunscreen was clothes. And so she says, why should I
continue to live like a non-royal when I am the bride of the king? Why should I have to be, why
should I be like one of those who covers themselves and then
said, beside the flocks of your friends. Notice there, she's
not saying beside your flock, other flocks. And then, now our Bible says
the friend's answer. Some say that actually it's her
beloved one answers, but it's a really good answer. We're dark,
aren't we? Because we live in this world
under the sun. Where or how can we find a place
of rest, a place of peace, a place with our beloved one? And the
answer to her is this, if you do not know most beautiful of
women. You know, we can find fault with
the church But don't we know deep inside on earth there's
nothing more beautiful? Nothing more beautiful. Follow
the tracks of the sheep. You want to know where to find
rest? You want to know where to live in peace? Follow the sheep. Why? Because our Lord said, my sheep
hear my voice and they follow me. And if you follow the sheep,
you'll find the Lord. Does that make sense? Our place in this world, as much
as possible, should be among the sheep. Why? Because among them, we find our
Lord. Among them, we most experience
that blessed rest in Christ. Among them, we find protection from the sun, from the difficulties,
from the hardships which darken us. and make us look like something
other than what you would expect. If you do not know where to find
the beloved, follow the sheep. I think that it is sad and bringing
harm to believers, I know it is, when they do not actively
pursue fellowship, friendship, and worship with God's people
as much as they can. Follow the sheep, you'll find
the shepherd. And then notice this, graze your
young goats by the tents of the shepherds. So what would normally happen
is you'd have someone who was, you know, a big shepherd, but
he hired other shepherds that did the actual work out there,
was actually out there with the sheep, you know, and they would
essentially, you know, stay in tents. They stayed out of the
sun by staying in the tent. And of course, since grazing
and shepherding involves moving around, you know, you wouldn't
build a building, you'd be in a tent. So you could move around. But those shepherds could sit
there in the heat of the day, but they would be in the shade
because they're under a tent. Now, who do these shepherds represent
in this story? I believe they represent the
pastors of God's flock in this world. After all, the word pastor
is simply the way they translate the word for shepherd. That's
all it is. There is the good shepherd, the
great shepherd of the sheep, but then there's a lot of us
under shepherds, a lot of us whom he has called and sent out
to graze his various flocks here and there. And so she says to
this woman, graze your young goats by the tents of the shepherds. Now, don't worry about goats
and sheep. The scripture at this point is
not trying to deal with the difference between believers and unbelievers.
She had work to do. And rather than go out there
as a covered up woman, Taking care of the goats, he
says, you go out there, you follow the tracks of the sheep, and
you graze your young goats by the tents of my shepherds. Why? Because in their tent, you
will find shade. In their tent, you can see everything
you need to see, and not only Will you be grazing your young
goats, your little ones? They'll be watching them too.
Imagine now that you're one of the shepherds of the great shepherd
and the bride of the shepherd comes out where you are to graze
her little goats. And she says, can I come in your
tent? Sure. Yes, you may. And can you help me keep an eye
on these? I certainly will. I certainly will. We're dark because we live in
this world and it has its effect on us. We don't look like royalty. We weren't born royalty and we've
got what? Spiritually speaking might be
considered menial labor to do because it's really not spiritual
labor. It's just the work of this world. But in this world,
our shepherd is here. And the easiest way to find him
and commune with him is to follow the tracks of the sheep because
they're following him. and go to the tents of his under
shepherds and sit in the shade and find rest. And in that place,
you will grow, spiritually speaking. You will not be so subject to
the darkness that the sun will have upon you. But if you decide
just to stick around, shall we say the friends of the shepherd,
and maybe we'll call that, I don't know that that's what's meant
here, but let's just say that's those who claim the name of Christ,
but they really aren't. If we try to find our comfort
among those who claim to be believers but worship falsely, There we'll
find no rest, we'll find no shade. We go to his shepherds. And so here, when we gather like
this, what are we doing? We're following the sheep. We're
going to the shepherds. We're sitting in the shade for
a while. We're taking our rest at midday and preparing ourselves
for the work in the vineyard that we have to do. All right,
we'll stop there.