Solomon chapter seven. I've entitled
the lesson, how a spouse is to speak. What I want us to look
at this morning is what the bridegroom and what the bride say to each
other. I want us to get a blessing from the things they say to one
another. Then I want us to look at how the bride and how the
bridegroom speak to each other. And I want us to get a blessing
from that and get instruction on how we should speak to our
spouses. Now we begin in verse six, this is where we left off
last week. This is the Savior speaking,
the bridegroom. He says, how fair and how pleasant
art thou, O love, for delights. Now Christ, our bridegroom, says
he delights in his people. He takes delight in them. He
takes delight in his love for them and he takes delight in
their love for him. He delights in his people because
he loves us. He's always loved his people.
He loves his people, he delights in his people because of what
he's made them by his grace. And I want us to remember when
he's saying this to his bride. He's saying this right after
she's come out of a time of spiritual stupor. At a time where she would
think, I don't deserve for him to speak to me this way. What
does he say to her? My delight is with you. He goes
on in verse seven, he says, this thy stature is like to a palm
tree, and thy breast a clusters of grapes. I look at Psalm 92. When a bridegroom compares his
people to a palm tree, he's talking about our standing before God.
What he's saying is that a believer stands before God Almighty righteous. Psalm 92 verse 12. The righteous shall flourish
like the palm tree. He shall grow like a cedar in
Lebanon. The palm tree is going to grow
straight and strong. I want us to realize how gracious,
how loving our Lord is. He makes a point of telling us
that we're righteous before him. We have a righteous standing
before God in Christ. You know, we'd never know that
if he didn't tell us. And we'd never be that if that's
not what he made us by his grace. A believer stands before God
perfect. That's our standing in Christ.
But there are several other ways of believers, like a palm tree.
A believer's always green and flourishing. Now, we don't see
that in ourselves, do we? We see ourselves like in a time
of winter where all we are is a dead-looking tree, not green
and flourishing. But you know, in Christ, that's
what we are. In Christ, we have life that's green and healthy
and flourishing. Now again, how loving is our
bridegroom to tell us that? When we look at ourselves, all
we see is deadness, just a dead tree, a dead flower, seems like
no signs of life. How kind and loving is our bridegroom
to tell us, you're green and flourishing, you have life in
me. How gracious is he that that's what he made us? We wouldn't
have that life if he didn't give it to us, if he didn't give us his
life. But here's the thing about that
palm tree that's green and flourishing. That palm tree, this is amazing
about a palm tree. You know when it produces the
most fruit? When it's under stress. Isn't that how a believer is?
The most fruit of the spirit is produced when? times of trial,
when we're put under stress. When we're stressed by the trial,
what happens? A believer is forced to look
to Christ. And that is what enables us to
look to Him, to rely on Him more fully. That's what enables us
to bring forth more fruit of the Spirit. And in my studies
this week, I found another way of believers, like a palm tree.
In my wildest imagination, I never would have come up with this.
I'm not smart enough. I read this. I got from Robert Hawker.
Hawker says a palm tree is different from all the other trees on earth
because it doesn't live by its roots. It lives by its head. If you cut off or you severely
damage the top, the head of a palm tree, it'll die. Just like if
you cut off the root or you severely damage the root of other trees,
they would die. If you cut off the head of a
palm tree, it's going to die because it lives by its head.
That's a believer. Now we know Christ is our root.
He's our foundation. But here in the Song of Solomon,
the picture that we're given throughout the whole book is
the picture of a husband and a wife, the bridegroom and the
bride. Christ is our head. In this relationship,
Christ is the head. We're completely dependent upon
Christ, our head. If you cut off the head, the
body's going to die. We live by Christ, our head. Then he goes on, he says, thy
breasts are like clusters of grapes. What he's saying is that
his bride, his people, his elect, make his heart glad. Make the
heart of the Lord glad. Now you imagine that. Just like
wine makes the heart of a man glad. Now that's a precious thought
for God's elect to think that we make Christ glad? Make his
heart glad? It's easy to see how that works
in reverse. It's easy to see how Christ makes our heart glad.
Christ must really love his people. If communion with us makes him
glad, he must really love his people. You think of what he's
made us by his grace, that he could be happy with his people,
that we can bring him joy and delight. That could only be possible
because of what he's made us by his grace. And he goes on
in verse eight and he says, I will go up to the palm tree. I will
take hold of the boughs thereof. Now also thy breast shall be
as clusters of the vine and the smell of thy nose like apples. The Lord loves his people so
much. He's coming to take possession
of her. He's going to take her in his
arms. He's going to hold her close to his bosom in a loving
embrace. And he's not going to let her
go. And that embrace makes him glad. That taking possession
of his people makes him glad. Now, this is not a violent taking,
you know, you grab somebody like a wrestler, you know, and hang
on to him, don't let him go. This is a tender embrace where
the bride is cradled in the arms of the Lord Jesus Christ. If Christ has done that for you,
And he takes possession of his people. If you're held in the
arms of the Savior himself in a loving embrace, why do we fear
all this wealth if we're held in his loving embrace? And he
will take possession of his people. He's not waiting on her to take
the first move. He said, I'm going to come take
possession. I'm going to take hold of the
boughs of this tree. And he has to do that because
by nature his bride's dead. She never will come to him, she
can't. She's dead, but he's gonna come take hold on her. And when
he does, he's gonna give her life. He talks here about the
smell of thy nose is like apples. He's talking about her breath.
She's breathing because she's got life. And her breath smells
good. Now the only reason that she's
breathing is he gave her life. and her breath is the breath
of love. That's the apples. We saw this earlier in our study.
Apples were a token of love. He says your breath is the breath
of love. Now I want you to look at Acts
chapter nine. If any of us are breathing the breath of spiritual
life, if our breath is the breath of grace and love, you can be
confident that's the breath God put in us in the new birth. That's
not our breath by nature. Acts 9, verse 1. And Saul, and look what he's
breathing out, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter
against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest
and desired of him letters to Damascus, to the synagogues,
that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or
women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. Saul is breathing
out threatenings and slaughter and hatred But right after the
Lord met Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, our brother
Paul was born again. He got a new breath. God breathed
the breath of spiritual life into him. I want you to look
at 2 Corinthians chapter 13. After Saul met the Lord, the
apostle Paul had a new breath. He breathed out grace and praise
and thanksgiving and faith. And he did it all the rest of
his life, didn't he? Second Corinthians 13 verse nine. For we're glad
when we're weak and you're strong. And this also, we wish even your
perfection. Therefore I write these things
being absent. Lest being present, I should
use sharpness. At one time, that's all Paul
wanted to use. He said, now I don't want to use that. Lest being
present, I use sharpness. According to the power which
is given to me, God gave him that apostolic power to edification
and not to destruction. Finally, brethren, farewell.
Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace,
and the God of love and peace shall be with you. Greet one
another with the holy kiss. All the saints salute you. The
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion
of the Holy Ghost be with you all. That's, he's got very different
breath now, doesn't he? He's breathing out something
very different. Look over 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 14. Now we exhort you, brethren,
warn them that are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the
weak, Be patient toward all men. Well, that is a different man
than the one who was requesting letters to call men and women
who are of this way to jail, wasn't it? Different man. Don't beat up the unruly. Don't whip them and beat them.
Warn them. The feeble-minded, don't cut
them off. Hold them up, comfort them, support the weak. Verse
15, see that none render evil for evil unto any man, but follow
that which is good. both among yourselves and to
all men. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything,
give thanks, for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus
concerning you. This is a different man, isn't
it? Well, why is he a different man?
Why is he breathing out something so different? Because a new man's
been born. Christ came and took possession
of him, and his breath changed, and that's the breath of like
apples that he talked about here. And when our Lord Jesus Christ
takes possession of His people, He takes possession of all of
them, all of her. If Christ is gonna have His people
with Him forever, He's gonna have to take possession of all
of her. Before He was joined to her marriage, she racked up
a debt she can't pay. If He's gonna take possession
of her and have her, He's gonna have to make those debts His.
He's gonna have to make that sin debt His. He's going to have
to make her sin his and pay for it with his own blood. If Christ
is going to take possession of his bride, he's going to have
to become what she is. He's going to have to assume
her nature. The only way she can be joined
to him and he can be joined to her is if they have the same
nature. So the son of God took on him
the nature of a man. He became a man. He humbled himself
to take on him flesh. so he could be joined to his
bride, so he could take possession of her. That's exactly what he
did. Now, verse nine, he says, in the roof of thy mouth, like
the best wine for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing
the lips of those that are asleep to speak. And here when the bridegroom
talks about the roof of her mouth and the feel of her lips, It's
obvious he's got a very intimate, close relationship with his bride. They're very comfortable together
to know something that intimate about each other. He says he
gives her the best wine. Well, that can't be anything
but his grace. God's grace goes down so sweetly. It refreshes the whole being. It tastes good. And I tell you
what, it makes her mouth taste good. He talks about there, the
roof of her mouth, that's her palate. It tastes good. What
he's talking about there is the words of her mouth. Grace in
the heart causes the mouth to taste good, causes the words
of the mouth to be gracious words. If grace is in the heart, grace
is going to be in the mouth. If Christ is in the heart, Christ
is going to be in the mouth. If Christ is in the heart, there'll
be confession of Christ made. with the mouth. It makes our
mouth taste good. And this union with Christ is
something that's enjoyable. He takes delight in it. And we
do too, don't we? We take delight in that union
and communion with Christ. But this union is also vitally
necessary. There can't be any life without
this union with Christ. When he talks about causing the
lips of those that are asleep to speak, He's talking about
making the dead speak. Well, how can that be? How can
the dead speak? Because he gives them life again. He brings them
back to life in the new birth. What this is teaching us here
is we can only have this spiritual life through union with Christ.
It's not through knowledge of doctrine and facts and scriptures.
It's not through following the law or the ceremonies. It's in
Christ. Life is through union with Christ. We're dead in Adam and made alive
in Christ. And human language just can't
express how sweet that is, how sweet union with Christ is to
have his life. And he's just been going on for
this time, telling his bride how much he loves her, how beautiful
she is to him, all the the intimate closeness that just delights
his soul. Well, the bride, she just can't
stay silent anymore. Now she's got to speak in response.
Look at verse 10. She says, I am my beloved. And
his desire is toward me. This relationship's a two way
street. I am my beloved. She willingly
says, yes, I am my beloved. He came and took possession of
me. I belong to him. I belong to Him because He made
me His. I belong to Him because He chose me. I belong to Him
because He sought me. I belong to Him because He bought
me. I belong to Him because He found
me. He made me His, so I belong to Him. And this is a willing
union. I belong to Him because I gave
myself to Him. I gave everything of All of who
I am, I gave it to him. I've committed everything I have
to him. I belong to him. And he belongs
to me because he gave himself to me. He gave me his righteousness. He gave me his love. He washed
me in his blood. He gave me his grace. He gave
me his life and he gave me his name. When I became married to
him, he gave me his name. So everything that belongs to
Christ belongs to His people through union with Him. Just
like everything that belongs to me belongs to Janet because
we're one flesh. Everything that belongs to Christ
belongs to you who believe because of union with Him. You're one
with Him. And Christ has created a desire
for Him in me. Every believer, you have a desire
for Christ. You have a desire to hear of
Him and worship Him. And we're weak and fickle. Sometimes
that desire's stronger than others. You know, we ebb and flow, everything
we do. But this is not talking about
our desire for Him, is it? What she delights in is not her
desire for Him. It's His desire for her. Salvation began with Christ's
desire for His people. He had a desire to be with his
people forever. Those people that he loves, he
has a desire to be with them. Christ desired them because he
loved them. But now I'm telling you, they're
lost in sin. They have a debt they can't pay.
If they're gonna be set free, Christ had to agree to be their
surety. He had to agree to come in the
fullness of time and pay their debt so they could be free. Otherwise
he couldn't have them. He desired his people so much,
but they couldn't come to him. So he had to come where we are.
He agreed to humble himself to become a man so he could be joined
to those people that he desired. The people that Christ desired,
they're lost. They can't save themselves. So
Christ agreed to be their savior because he desired their salvation. He desired to have them not lost
in sin anymore, but made righteous in Him. The people that Christ
desired, they couldn't find Him. So He went out and found them,
embraced them, held them into His bosom and brings them home.
The people that Christ desired were dead. They can't be joined
to Him. They can't enjoy any communion
with Him. He can't enjoy anything about them because they're dead.
So He came to them and gave them His life so they could be joined
to Him. Look at Psalm 21. Christ desired
his people so much. He's proactive in this desire.
He asked his father for his people because he desired them. They
were such a joy to him. He endured everything he endured
for the elect's sake, and he asked his father for those people
that he loved. Psalm 21, verse one. The king
shall joy in thy strength, O Lord, and in thy salvation. How greatly
shall he rejoice? Thou hast given him his heart's
desire and hast not withholden the request of his lips. You
mean to tell me, this is what the bride's saying, Christ loves
me like that? That he would ask his father
for me, to have me? Of course I love him. In return,
of course I love him. Now our bridegroom says he enjoys
being with his people. And she says in response, I enjoy
being with him too. Look back in our text, verse
11. She says, come, my beloved. Let us go forth into the field.
Let us lodge in the villages. Let us get up early to the vineyards.
Let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear
and the pomegranates bud forth. There will I give thee my loves. Now the bride here, she's talking
about the bridegroom. She wants him to come apart with
her. She wants him to come have a
time of communion and fellowship, just her and him, this time of
communion together. And she talks about going to
the field. Well, that's a picture of the scripture. She's praying,
Lord, go with us to the field. Go with us to the scriptures
and open the scriptures to our understanding so we can get a
blessing from them. You know, unless the Holy Spirit
meets with us, We can't learn anything from God's word. Unless
the Holy Spirit enables us, God's book, God's word is a closed
book to us. The spirit must give us understanding. And that's what she's saying.
Come with us to the scriptures so we can have communion together.
A believer must have God's word. This is what we feed upon. That's
where we see Christ. So she prays, Lord, come bless
us as we study your word. And then she talks about the
villages. Come with me to this lodge in the villages. What she's
talking about here is private worship. Lord, be with me in
my daily life. As we go through to our homes
and our jobs and out in the community and the things that we do, Lord,
be with me. In our home, Lord, be with me. Be the head of our
home. Don't let us just think about
the Lord and we come to the church building, you know, on Sundays
and Wednesdays. Lord, be with me in my home. True faith, true salvation, true
religion, however you want to phrase that, reaches the entire
life of a person. Grace in the heart, faith in
the heart, Christ in the heart, has to affect our walk through
this world. It has to affect our walk, our conduct before
our families, before our friends, before our neighbors, before
our coworkers. And that's what she's praying here, Lord, Go
with me, be with me, enable me to walk with you like Enoch walked
with you. Then she talks about the vineyards.
Go with me early to the vineyards and let's see if the vine flourish.
Here she's talking about God's church. She's talking about all
God's people. Our Lord said, I'm the vine,
you're the branches. She's talking here about public
worship with the church. Now in God's church, We see all
kinds of different stages of life on the vine, don't we? They're
just those buds. That's the new believer, just
barely beginning to show evidence of life. Life just barely beginning
to spring forth. That's a babe in Christ. And
then those, they're the tender grapes you see on the vine. When
I read that, I automatically thought, well, that's the young
in Christ, young men, young women in Christ, the tender grape.
But if you think about it, those tender grapes are every believer,
from the youngest to the oldest. The oldest believer, the one
the strongest in the faith, is still a very tender grape, still
so dependent upon Christ, still in need of Christ to watch over
us and care for us and give us life. And she wants the Lord
to go with her to see a divine flourish. Well, I'll tell you
the vine. I'll tell you when the vine of
the church will flourish. It's when Christ is there. When
Christ is preached, the vine will flourish. The vine will
flourish. When I very first became pastor, Brother Donnie Bell called
me. And part of that conversation,
he told me this. He said, you just week after
week after week deal honestly with the scriptures. And God's
people will flourish. If Christ is preached, The church
will flourish. If Christ is there, he'll bless
his preached word and the church will flourish. And she says,
now she prays to him, come with me, be with me in the scriptures. Be with me in my walk through
my everyday life. Be with the church as we meet
together to worship thee. And there, when we're together
there, I'll give you my loves. There I'll proclaim my love for
you. And there I'll tell you how much
I love you. Now I know I love Christ because he first loved
me. I know that. I know that the love of Christ
is what's most important in this relationship between me and him.
But I tell you what, I do love him. I do. Wayne, I don't love
him like I ought to. I don't love him like I wish
I did, but I do love him. And this is what the bride, she
has to be remembering this time of spiritual sloth, this slumber
she was in. And she prays, Lord, come with
me, be with me, so I can tell you how much I love you. I do
love you. It didn't show like it ought
to, but I do love you. Verse 13, she goes on. She says,
the mandrakes give a smell, and our gates are all manner of pleasant
fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved. Now, I don't know a lot about
mandrakes, and I haven't really read a lot about anybody that
does know anything about mandrakes. Apparently, mandrakes are a very
desired fruit. At this time, it's something
everybody wanted. Maybe they were rare or something, and they
were a very desired fruit. They were such a desired fruit.
You remember Leah and Rachel. They, of course, they always
fought over their husband, Jacob. One day, Leah, her son, one of
her sons, gathered a bunch of mandrakes, and she used those
mandrakes and purchased from her sister, Rachel, a night to
spend with Jacob. Mandrakes must taste pretty good.
I mean, she was able to buy a night with her husband for it. Some
people think mandrakes were considered to be a fertility drug, and that
could be, because a believer certainly desires to be fruitful
in the Lord, don't we? But whatever it means exactly,
the mandrakes and all these other pleasant fruits, they look good,
they smell good, they taste good. That's all the fruits of the
blessings that we enjoy in this union with Christ. The fruit
of enjoying communion with him, enjoying his company. Now that
gives us a picture of a very sweet marriage relationship between
Christ and his bride. There's such a, that you can
tell how they enjoy one another. They enjoy being with one another. And clearly the, Vital teaching
there is the union of Christ and his people. But as Brother
Henry told us so often, scripture is bifocal. And I want to use
this just to take a minute here to give us some instruction on
marriage. Marriage is a very, very, very
important relationship on this earth. It's important because
scripture specifically mentions that marriage is a picture of
the union between Christ and his bride. Our marriages are
pictures of the salvation that we have in Christ. That makes
an important relationship, doesn't it? Would you like to enjoy a
good picture? Would you like to give your children
a good picture of Christ? Would you like to give your family,
your neighbors a good picture of salvation in Christ? Every
believer ought to want that. We ought to want a life and a
home that glorifies our Savior. And it would be very easy for
me to preach a whole nother message on marriage. It's an important
subject. It's a beautiful picture of Christ
and His bride, a beautiful picture of salvation in Him. But I'm
going to confine myself to our text. I want to give you one
key you can take home with you to a happy, successful marriage. And that key is how we talk to
one another. A good marriage relationship
is just seen. You can just see it. and how
a husband talks to his wife and how he talks about her wife.
Boy, I get worried. I hear her husband talking about
his wife, referring to his wife as the old ball and chain. Hmm. If you do that, quit it. Don't
do that. Does Christ refer to you that
way? No. A good marriage relationship
is seen how a husband talks to his wife and how he talks about
her wife. and also in how the wife talks to her husband, and
how she talks about her husband. Now in our text, did the bride
deserve for her husband to come in, and did she deserve for the
bridegroom to come in and kind of talk harsh to her? She did,
didn't she? She'd just come through this
time as a spiritual stupor. She said some things she ought
not have said. She acted in ways she ought not have acted. But
when Christ came back to her, how'd he talk to her? He said
the same things to her that he said before she went into this
time of spiritual stupor. All he told her was how beautiful
she is. All he told her is how much he
enjoyed being with her, how much he enjoyed her company. All he
told her was despite what she'd done, despite what she is by
nature, his love for her is unchanged. He told her how beautiful she
was. He said, my view of your beauty
is unchanged. And he let her know it in no
uncertain terms, didn't he? Now, husbands, if we want a happy
marriage, I tell you this, as often as I ever talk about marriage,
the husband has the most responsibility in a happy marriage in the home.
He does. He's the picture of Christ. You
set the tone, you're the head. If we want a happy marriage,
that's how we ought to talk to our wives. We ought to talk to
her in love. We ought to talk to her in respect.
We ought to be telling her how beautiful she is to us. We ought
to tell her how much we enjoy being with her. We ought to seek
out her company. I have yet to meet a woman that
won't respond well to that kind of talk. Janet tells me all the
time, all I want from you is sweet and gushy, just sweet and
gushy. We ought to talk to our wives in this way, like our Savior
talked to her. I tell you, if you do, you'll
have a happy wife. And you will. And we talk about marriage. I
ain't got a lot of rules for you. I'm not going to tell you
to do this, do this, do this, give you a whole list of rules.
You know, if you're like me, you'll forget them. I got one. The law of love. The law of love. Luke, as you establish your new
home, remember that. The law of love. Do your best,
husbands, to imitate the faithfulness. The faithfulness of Christ. We
don't deserve it, but He's faithful. Husbands, imitate that. Imitate
His love. Imitate the thoughtfulness of
Christ our husband. I promise you, that'll promote
a happy marriage. And wives? See that you reverence
your husband like the bride does here. Find your desire with your
husband, just like the bride did here. Find your satisfaction
with your husband. Find satisfaction and joy in
submitting to his rule, like the bride does here. Talk to
your husband with love and respect, just like she did. My piece of
advice to wives as often as this, don't get caught up getting in
a group of women and husband bashing. I told you before, men
are low hanging fruit. It's easy to do, but don't do
it. Just don't do it. Follow this
picture of Christ and his bride. When our Lord does things we
don't understand, do we bash him for it? God forbid. Follow that same picture in the
way you talk about your husband. Talk to him and talk about him.
Speak to him with love and respect. And speak about him with love
and respect. I promise you, that'll promote
a happy, harmonious home and a good marriage that glorifies
our Savior. All right, I hope the Lord will
bless that too. You're good in His glory.