My subject tonight is tender
words of intimate love. In this seventh chapter of the
Song of Solomon, the Lord Jesus Christ, speaking by representation
through Solomon, gives us a tender, intimate, loving description
of his love and disdain for his bride, the church. In verses
one through nine of this chapter, He tells us in the most intimate
language possible that he both loves us and takes delight in
us incessantly. He loves his church. He takes
delight in his bride. He loves and takes delight in
his chosen incessantly. Then in verses 10 through 13,
the bride, the church, the believer, sinners saved by God's grace,
redeemed by the blood of Christ, expresses her love for Christ. She tells him how she loves him
and delights in him and greatly desires to be in constant communion
and fellowship with him. Now the intimate language of
this chapter to the carnal and self-righteous mind is probably
both confusing and offensive. I've heard folks speak of the
song of Solomon as if somehow this thing is dirty, it's not
to be read, and that's utter nonsense. Folks who think they're
holier than God need to learn something. This book is written
for our learning, for our admonition. But those who know the love of
Christ, those whose hearts are truly in love with the Son of
God, We'll find this seventh chapter of the Song of Love most
delightful and precious if God the Holy Spirit will open it
to our understanding. Matthew Henry made this observation
concerning this chapter. He speaks of this intimate interchange
between Christ and his church. He said such mutual esteem and
endearment there is between Christ and believers. And what is heaven? but an everlasting interchanging
of loves between the holy God and holy souls. An everlasting
interchanging of love between Christ and his church. Now these
expressions of love between Christ and his bride certainly must
be understood allegorically. They must be understood in a
spiritual, not a carnal sense. Yet we have here a pattern and
an example of the relationship which ought to exist between
every man and woman in their household because that marriage
union which God ordained in the garden even before the fall was
intended by God to be a picture, a representation of Christ and
his church and the loving relationship between Christ and his church. So this evening I want us first
to look at what the Savior says to us. And then we will consider
the response of our hearts to him, and then we'll draw some
lessons if we have time for husbands and wives. First then, let's
look at verses one through nine. Here is Christ speaking to his
church in tender, loving, thoughtful, endearing terms. Now notice the
title which he gives to his church, O Prince's Daughter. The Lord
himself is the prince of the kings of the earth. He is the
prince of glory and the prince of peace. Here he calls us his
daughter. That is to say we are his daughter
by virtue of birth. We have been born of him, begotten
of God, born from above. We are his workmanship, we bear
his image. As the children of God, we bear
the image of the king of kings and we are thus the prince's
daughter. and we are also the prince's daughter by marriage.
You and I, who are born of God's Spirit, are married forever to
the Son of God, united to Jesus Christ, our Lord, his bride,
his people. So we are the prince's daughter
as he speaks of us here. Now here our Lord describes the
beauty of his church as he beholds her in his own eyes in these
first five verses. In our own eyes, We see that
there is nothing beautiful about us. Our souls are like a company
of two warring armies. But we are humbled with a sense
of our sin, our shame, our guilt, depravity, and unworthiness. But in his eyes, and that's the
only thing that matters, he reckons us to be all together worthy
of his love. Imagine that. Because of his
righteousness put upon us, because of his blood atonement by which
our sins are washed away, God Almighty reckons us worthy of
himself. And here he describes us. He
speaks to us, sinful though we are in ourselves, to express
his love, assuring us that he loves us and delights in us.
Now these tender, loving words are thoughtful and most endearing
in the context The church has defiled herself. You remember
in chapter five, she spurned her Lord, as often we do. And she needed greatly to be
assured of his love and his mercy. So our thoughtful Redeemer here
assures us, in the midst of our defilement, that his love has
not changed. His mercy has not been withdrawn.
The gifts and callings of our God are indeed without repentance. For in Christ we are perfect
and he declares that we are. Now here is a tenfold beauty. The beauty of the church of Christ. Let me make it more specific.
Oscar is talking about your beauty in his eyes. He's talking about
the beauty of every believer in his eyes. First he says how
beautiful are thy feet with shoes." He's set before us, is this thing? He has set our feet free, and
he has adorned them with the gospel of peace to walk at liberty. And here he beholds us walking
about in the earth as men and women who have been set free
from the bondage of sin, the prison house of despair, and
the tyranny of Satan, men and women whose feet have been shod
with the gospel. And he says, oh, how beautiful
are your feet. Your feet with the shoes that
I've put upon them. And then he says, the joints
of thy thighs are like jewels. I looked at that and I thought,
what does that mean? the joints of thy thighs like jewels. Probably the strongest part of
your body is your thigh, probably. Your thighs, those things which
hold up the whole structure. If the thighs go, the body soon
crumbles. I like to watch professional
boxing when I get a chance to. It's not often, but I like to
watch it. That may be some of barbaric academic nature still
in me, but that's what I like. I enjoy And the fellows who are
calling the fight and calling what's going on around there,
they'll say his legs are gone. And when his legs are gone, Bobby,
he's going down. Because that fellow, he can't stand if his
legs are gone. His thighs imply strength. Here the picture is
this. The principles that strengthen
us, the principles that determine how we walk in this world, like
the knee and hip joints are jewels in his sight. These are the principles
by which every believer lives. These are the principles by which
believers walk in this world with strength. They are faith
and love. Oh, now those two principles,
if they are established in your heart by grace, if they are given
to you by the Spirit of God, they'll give you strength and
carry you through this world. These things are produced in
us by God the Holy Spirit. They are the work of the hands
of a cunning workman. You see that? These jewels, these
jewels of faith and love, love for God, love for his people,
love for his word and love for his ways. These things give us
strength and they are that which God has worked in us. So we are
his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works. Read on. thy navel is like a round goblet. Now, if you read Ezekiel 16,
in the fourth chapter, you'll find that when he came to us,
when he saved us by his grace, he describes us as an infant
cast out from the mother's womb, an aborted child cast out in
the wilderness. And he says, your navel was not
cut at all, nor swaddled at all. And now he says your navel is
like a cup full of wine, refreshing, invigorating, inspiring. It's
well shaped and full of life, not uncut, not bleeding, not
loathsome like it is by nature. Your navel is full of life. The
fear of the Lord, the wise man said, is help unto thy navel. The fear of the Lord is that
which gives health and strength to your life, your being, your
soul. Thy belly, he says, is like a heap of wheat set about
with lilies. Again, I stress the language
is allegorical. Somehow I don't think my wife
would take it to be a great compliment if I were to use this particular
poetic phraseology to her in describing her beauty. But this
language is poetic and is given in the sense of the oriental
poetry of the country where men looked upon shepherds and the
life of a shepherd as being a blessed, blessed thing. But more than
that, it's given by inspiration to teach us how Christ esteems
his church. He says, when your belly is like
a heap of wheat set about with lilies, the wheat refers to fruitfulness. Out of your inmost being, our
Lord said. Out of your inmost belly shall
flow rivers of living water. Your belly shall be fruitful
by my grace. The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, temperance.
Against these things there is no law, and this is the fruit
of the Spirit, not the produce of our hands. The flowers refer
to the beauty and pleasure that he derived from his fruit in
us. The Lord Jesus beholds his bride,
his church, and he sees the beauty he's put upon us, the grace he's
put within us, and he says this is like, this, your belly is
like, is like a field of wheat, full of harvest, full and ready
for the harvest, and surrounded with lilies. Love to smell it. Love to be among you. Love to
be with you. And then he speaks again. He
says, thy two breasts are like two young rose that are twins. Now this refers to the word of
God. And so, Pastor, how did you get that? Well, I didn't
pull it off the top of my head. You get it from 2 Peter, or 1
Peter rather, chapter 2, verse 2. As newborn babes desire the
sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. He says,
your breasts are like two young deer that are twins. And he's
referring here to the Old and New Testament Scriptures. These,
like twins, are in perfect agreement. The Old Testament and the New
proclaim salvation by grace. The Old Testament and the New
set forth redemption by the blood of Christ. The Old Testament
and the New show us Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and the work
of righteousness which He has accomplished, the work of redemption
which He has performed, the way of salvation in Him alone who
is the way. These twins. in perfect agreement,
show us the riches of the glory and the grace of God in Jesus
Christ. Then here's the sixth thing,
thy neck is like a tower of ivory. The faith of God's elect is that
by which we are joined to Christ our head. It's both strong and
it is precious, like ivory precious, like a tower strong, reaching
up to lay hold of Christ. The faith which he's given us
is that which unites us to him in a lively way. And then he
says in verse, in the next verse, thine eyes are like the fish
pools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-Rabbi. The eyes here
spoken of are the eyes of repentance and faith. The eyes with which
we look to the sun's love and devotion, sincerity and truth.
The eyes that weep over sin are beautiful in the eyes of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They are looked upon by him as
fountains flowing out to his joy. Then he says, thy nose is
as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus. Looking
toward Damascus with firm looking toward Damascus with confidence,
looking toward Damascus knowing that you shall prevail. What
he's saying here is an implication of power, boldness and courage. He says the Church of God, I
look upon her and see in her the boldness and courage with
which she faces her enemies and faces her difficulties in this
world with which she walks through this world walking upright before
men, walking upright before her enemies with boldness and confidence. Somehow we've gotten the silly
idea that meekness is sort of wimpishness. That meekness is,
you know, we get the idea, folks, see these pictures of folks in
Eastern religions, they walk around and bow their heads and
kind of shuffle their feet and act like they're just too humble
to even look up to the skies. And we get the idea that's meekness.
That's not meekness, that's religious superficiality. Meekness is beheld
in a man like Moses, the meekest man who ever lived. I can't picture
him walking around shuffling his feet looking down the ground
all the time, can you? No, no, no. This is a man who knew God. He knew God and believed God.
And because he knew God and believed God, and so to honor God, he
walked through the world full of his enemies with confidence. We shall indeed overcome. Not just this situation, but
every situation. Not just this enemy, but every
enemy. Not just this trial, but every
trial. Your nose is like the tower of
Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. And thine head, this is a nice
thing, thine head upon thee is like caramel, and the hair of
thine head like purple. Christ our head is exalted above
the earth and reigns as king over all the earth. He's our
he. Your head, it's like the Mount
Carmel. And then lastly, a woman's beauty,
we are told in 1 Corinthians 11, is the hair of her head. That's her glory. You ladies
take great care to see to it your head presented just right.
and uh you take great care with your hair and if you don't you
ought to you ought to have some pay some attention to those things
that's the beauty and the glory of a woman even so Christ our
head is our great glory and our beauty we have no beauty except
what we have in him and from him and his greatest beauty is
seen in his agony upon the cross when his hair was dyed crimson
and purple. Your hair on your head is your
glory. The hair of your head is like
purple. The Lord Jesus, our King, here's
his glory. Here's his glory. Oh, listen. Here's his glory. Here's his
greatest duty. Here's his noblest deed. Here's his most powerful attraction. He was made to be sin for us
and suffered under the wrath of God Almighty that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him. There's His glory. There's His detail. If ever you
come to understand the beauty and glory of God in the crucified
Christ, that'll wrap up your heart. That'll call your soul
to be wrapped up in him. Now then, in verses five through
nine, our Lord Jesus tells us of the complacency, satisfaction,
and delight he has in his church. The King is held in the gallery. Some modern buildings are this
way, but in ancient times, and particularly in religious buildings
and in theaters, you'd have a building, a large building to have lots
of people in it, thousands of people, and usually we call them
balconies, they have galleries. The king is held in the galleries. How fair and pleasant art thou,
O love for delights. This is Christ speaking to us.
How pleasant How fair art thou, O love, for delights! This thy
stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breast to clusters of
grapes. I said I will go up to the palm
tree, I'll 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, and 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." The Lord Jesus Christ
has adorned us and made us beautiful in his sight with his beauty,
which he has put upon us and he delights in it. We can read
it in Ezekiel 16. I urge you to read it again after
we've had the Lord's table this evening. Maybe that'd be a good
way to retire. Go home and read that 16th chapter of Ezekiel
and see what beauty he's put upon us. Our Lord Jesus delights
in the beauty of his people. And that beauty is his righteousness. How fair, how pleasant. Oh, my soul, the son of God. has made us fair and pleasant
to hear." He, Lord, our Savior, delights
in the company of his people, too. He said, I will go up to
the palm tree, I'll take hold of the boughs thereof. Now also
thy breast shall be as clusters of vine, and the smell of thy
nose like apple. The wise man in Proverbs says
to every man that he must be satisfied with the breast of
the wife of his youth. Here the Lord Jesus speaks of
his satisfaction with the breast of the wife of his youth. He
said, you are most pleasant to me. And then the Lord Jesus delights
in the prayers and praises of his people. He says, the roof
of your mouth, it's like the best wine for my beloved. Take a glass of wine, just the
very best wine. And that doesn't really matter
what kind it is. The best of wines goes down smooth. It's easy to swallow. It goes
down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak,
to awaken. Wine makes Mary the heart. Wine
gives health to the soul. But here our Lord Jesus is speaking
of the words of praise and prayer that come, Bobby, from your heart
to Him. He said, now that's That's like
wine that goes down sweetly. Oh, I like that. I love to hear
you call on me. I love to hear you cry out for
my grace. I love to hear you speak forth
my praise. But not only does it go down
sweet, your prayer and praise will awaken your sleeping souls. These wake up those that sleep.
Now then, in verses 10 through 13, We see that the church, all
believing sinners, are overcome by the love of Christ. Look at
this. I am my beloved and his desire
is toward me. Here she acknowledges that she
belongs to Christ. I'm his all by I'm his. He chose me. He redeemed me. He called me. He gave me life. He gave me faith. He joined me
to himself. I'm his. And his desire is toward me. My soul is as a company of two
armies. I know there's nothing in me,
no good thing in me. I know that there's nothing but
sin and corruption in me, but in spite of that, in spite of
the coldness and deadness and barrenness of my heart, in spite
of my indifference in my sin, I have this confidence, his desire
is towards always has been, and it'll never
change. I see nothing in myself to attract
him. I see no beauty in me, but he
sees nothing else. His desire is toward me. And then she acknowledges the
desire to be with him, to be in his company, to be in his
fellowship. She says in verse 11, come my
beloved, let us go forth into the fields, let us lodge in the
villages. To put it in the words of the
hymn, thou, O Christ, art all I want, more than all in thee I find. And she acknowledges a desire
to know the true condition of her own heart. Verse 12, she
says, let us get up early to the vineyards and let us see
if the vines flourish, whether the tender grape appear and the
pomegranates bud forth. Come, my beloved, let's get up
early and let's see if there's really any fruit in me. And then
in verse 12, there will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell, and
at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruit. Indeed, there
is fruit here, not anything I produced, but fruit that you produced,
all manner of pleasant fruit, new and old, which I have laid
up for thee, O my beloved. And thus she promises him her
love and her devotion. Lord, what I am and what I have,
I am by grace and I have by grace and I've laid it up for you,
all for you. She promises to love him and
she promises him herself. I'm yours. Oh, like Ruth spoke to Boaz,
who was always wanting to spread your skirt over me, I'm your
handmaid, take me. Oh, Lord God, you take me, I'm
yours. I'm everything I am, the love
of my heart and all that I possess, I'm yours. Now then, briefly,
there are lessons here for both husbands and wives. Love needs no law. It's a law
to itself. Love needs no motive. It is its
own motive. If a man loves his wife, he wants
to please her and to do her good. He doesn't need any commandment
telling him to do so. If a woman loves her husband,
she wants to honor him and please him. She needs no commandment
to do so. But even love needs instruction.
And here our Lord gives us some instructions. Instructions in
love by way of his own example. Then, in this example, our Lord
gives us some very clear instructions about loving our why. Somebody says, well, he loves
me, just loves me in his own way. Well, fully on his way.
This is the way we ought to love. Love your why's this way. with
faithful dependability. As Christ is faithful and his
church can depend on him, so we as men in our households must
in all things be faithful and dependable. We live in this silly Weak-kneed
society in which every man's taught to be effeminate and every
woman's thought to be masculine everybody going to nut Going
to some shrink cause they're all going nuts. No don't have
any idea what the supposed to do Men, this is manliness. It's dependability just dogged
dependability So that your wife and your children your family
Flat know exactly what to expect from you. They can count on you.
They can count on you thoughtfulness. Our Lord so thoughtful of us.
Let us be thoughtful of our wives. And with that thoughtfulness
is honor and tenderness. Intimate tenderness and affection. We kind of like it that the ladies
need it. And with that tenderness and
affection, devotion. Now ladies, the spouse here by
way of example gives you some instruction as well. I see here
reverence for her husband, satisfaction with her husband, submission
to her husband, the giving of herself to her husband, the desire
to be with him and preach. That's what it is to walk in
this world with a man exemplifying the love of the church for Christ,
and for a man to walk with a woman exemplifying the love of Christ
for his church. We can safely rest in our Savior's
love. We should keep our hearts in
the love of Christ, and we should endeavor by the grace of God
to imitate his love in our homes. All children of God let us endeavor
in all things to follow the example he's given us.