Beginning and maintaining a covenant relationship of love

Text Song of Songs 8:5-14 Date 18/09/22 Place Childs Hill Baptist

We come this week to the last section of Song of Solomon. Again, I want to consider what we learn about the love story between King Solomon and his beloved Shulamite and their covenant relationship of love, both in light of what it teaches on the horizontal level and what it teaches on the vertical level, ie what it teaches about human love and marriage and what it teaches about the relationship between Christ and his church, the people of God. Previously we’ve had sometimes quite lengthy speeches fairly easy to identify, mainly from the Bride and her Lover. Here we have a series of speeches in rapid succession from various speakers. These are not always so easy to assign. Probably the NIV is right in identifying six different speeches – three from the woman, two from the Friends in verses 5a and 8, 9 and one from the Lover in verse 13. How ever we divide things we get the impression of a coming together and a certain concluding togetherness. The passage raises four useful questions for us.

1. How should a covenant relationship of love continue?

We begin with the chorus, by means of a question, drawing attention to the Beloved walking along, on the arm of her Lover, coming up out of the wilderness. 5a Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved? Back in 3:6 we had a similar reference when the marriage procession was described. Here the question is asked again and this time we see that still, at this more mature period in their marriage, the Bride is leaning on her husband. She puts all her weight on him. This is a powerful picture firstly of marriage itself but also of the relationship between Christ and his church. There are three things to note in particular.

1. They are together 2. They are leaving the wilderness behind 3. The Beloved leans on her Lover

This is how a marriage should be. We are not saying that husbands and wives need to be physically in one anther’s company 24 hours a day but they do need to spend time together and to be together in other respects too. Always a marriage should be going forward and where there are barren patches, dry and fruitless times, then they must be left behind by the grace of God. The normal pattern is that the woman should lean on the man, not the other way round. Although in one sense it works both ways, he should be a source of strength to his wife. She is to be treated (as the New Testament exhorts) as the weaker vessel. Ideally, the way forward in marriage is to leave the wilderness behind, to stay together and for the wife to lean more than ever on her husband in Christ. Problems come in marriage when there is no progress, when there is no togetherness or when the husband fails to shoulder his responsibilities as he ought to.

Certainly, when we come to the relationship between Christ and his church that is the situation. We must always lean on him. He is the one who supports us and leads us out of the wilderness and on to heaven as together we share his easy yoke. It is a question to ponder Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved? It is the Lord Jesus Christ and his church, the people of God heading for home in the company of its one Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Is Christ leading you out of the wilderness? Are you with him? Are you leaning evermore heavily on him? That's the way forward for a Christian. This is how we must go forward as individuals and as a church.

2. What will enable a covenant relationship of love to continue?

So here is our basic principle for going on in a covenant relationship of love but what can we learn here about what we need to do to go on? We can say three things in particular.

1. Remember how it began

The woman then speaks next or is it the man? Under the apple tree I roused you; there your mother conceived you, there she who was in labour gave you birth. It is probably the case that one of them is recalling their first meeting. One is sleeping under an apple tree when he or she is awakened by the other. Bearing in mind the spiritual application which we believe is appropriate to this portion of Scripture it is tempting to assume that it is the Lover who speaks. It is appropriate to think of her as being asleep – exhausted perhaps but certainly dead to his charms. Then he comes to her and awakes her and she was, as it were, conceived and born. That was the beginning of life. If you are a Christian you may not be exactly sure when you were converted but you can at least remember the first time you were really sure that you were or when you first awoke to your spiritual situation. Such a memory is precious and ought to be recalled. There you were dead to God and to life in Christ but then the Lord came and awoke you. He gently raised you up and you were born again.

However, it is probably more likely that it is the woman who is speaking. She has referred to him before as an apple tree and it may be that she is speaking of him by using this term. Otherwise, she has in mind simply a fruit tree and all that evokes of romance. Spiritually speaking, she is recalling, as she has before, the coming of Christ into this world and her discovery of him by the grace of God. It is good when we remember, as best we can, how it all began. How excited we were to discover Christ, asleep as it were. How eager we were to awake him and receive his blessings. That is how it should go on.

There is an application to marriage too. There is probably no such thing as love at first sight but there is certainly attraction at first sight and many couples can talk about how they first met and the feelings they had even then for one another. Some, of course, knew one another for many years before there was any serious thought of marriage. Every couple has its story. You children you might like to ask mam and dad their story if you don’t know it. I’m sure that it is generally a good thing to keep in mind how it all began. Marriages can hit difficult times and sometimes the best antidote to troubles is just to remind yourself of what attracted you to your husband or wife in the first place. Of course, some marriages get off to a shaky start and it’s better in some ways not to dwell on how it all began, although God turns situations around remarkably at times even in seemingly hopeless situations and it is to such turning points that attention must be directed.

2. Nurture it with the right desires

In verses 6 and 7 it is generally agreed that it is certainly the Bride speaking. She sums up the whole theme of the Song and brings it to a climax, Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm; for love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If one were to give all the wealth of one's house for love, it would be utterly scorned. So here we have an earnest request to the Lover prompted by a realisation of the nature of true love.

We look at the earnest request first. Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm she prays. In ancient times seals were used by important people, especially kings, as a quick and easy yet unique means of identifying their authorship and ownership. By means of a ring or a pattern engraved on a pendant or bracelet, a seal could be impressed in wax marking ownership. There is also some evidence that lovers would exchange seals. Her prayer then is that she might belong uniquely to her Lover, that she might be his alone. She seeks such assurance.

In marriage it is important that there is such assurance. Not only must the relationship be an exclusive one in terms of there not being a closer relationship with anyone else but there must be a willingness not to let anything else so dominate that the husband or wife is put into second place. To desire assurances that this is the situation is right and good. Similarly, this is an appropriate prayer for us to address to Christ Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. We want every assurance that we really are his. The greater our assurance, the more certain it is, the better. Let’s seek it earnestly.

3. Understand the nature of true love

She makes this request because she truly loves him. She describes her love for him using several images to express how strong it was. Some take it to rather to be a description of his love to her. Perhaps we are wisest to see it as a description of true love that will manifest itself in similar ways wherever it occurs.

Its strength - as great as death. Think of the power of death. Slowly but surely it picks us off one by one. None of us can escape it, none of us can escape it. Love is as strong as that. For love is as strong as death. We see it supremely in Christ and his love for his own. He even went to the point of dying on the cross in order to save his own. Because he first loved us, as believers, we ought to love him too with a strong and enduring love. In marriage husbands have the model of Christ’s love for his church and wives that of what the church ought to show to Christ.

Its intensity – as unyielding as the grave. Its jealousy unyielding as the grave. True love is as determined as the grave itself. Nothing can overthrow it or defeat it. It will win out. We tend to think of jealousy as a bad thing and, of course, in fallen sinful man it can go out of control but jealousy itself is right and proper. True love brooks no rivals. God is a jealous God and he will have no rivals for his people’s affections. In response we ought to be jealous for his honour also. All this should be reflected in marriage. Woe to that person who tries to interfere with the marriage of another and arouse their jealousy. We do not condone murder but it is true that some people have lost their lives in such a move.

Its passion - as unquenchable as blazing fire. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot quench love. Fire is another powerful force. You have seen film of forest fires in America and other countries. Despite their best efforts fire fighters cannot hold the flames back. You have seen, perhaps at close quarters what devastation fire can cause. That’s what true love is like. Do what you may to dampen it down, to quench it or quell it, yet still it thrives. It blazes and flames. Even when you think it has died right down, the embers can be fanned into flame again and the blaze is raised once more. The phrase mighty flame is literally ‘Flame of the LORD’. God is love. He has a passionate, unstoppable love for his own. Again this ought to be part of marriage. We sometimes speak of keeping the flames of passion stoked – we must.

Its unquenchableness - as immovable as a rock. Perhaps the phrase Many waters cannot quench love, rivers cannot sweep it away is moving to a different picture. You know the power of water to alter the landscape. When floods come or the sea is high whole chunks of land can be removed and carried off. True love is not like that. It withstands such onslaughts and like a rock in a storm it remains unmoved despite all that may be thrown at it. Here is another picture then of the true love seen in Christ that ought to be reflected in our love to him and the love that binds man and wife together in marriage.

Its preciousness – it is beyond price. If one were to give all the wealth of one's house for love, it would be utterly scorned. It is part of the nature of true love that it cannot be bought. Sometimes people can be bought off. They want something badly but if you get your price right they can be bought off. True love is not like that. If you say to a true lover ‘Listen, I will give you £100 pounds, £1, 000, £10,000 if you will give up your love’ not only would the true lover refuse you – he would look at you with scorn. ‘Do you understand the first thing of what real love is all about?’ Money can’t buy me love. This explains why a wife will stay with her husband even though he is poor. It explains why neither bribery nor persecution can persuade the true believer to deny his Lord.

‘All you need is love’ was John Lennon’s famous phrase. Poetically speaking he was right, of course. However, we must understand what love is all about. Until we do chanting the phrase ‘All you need is love’ is like chanting a mere mantra. It means no more than abracadabra or rhubarb, rhubarb.

3. How should a covenant relationship of love be begun?

At this point the chorus comes in again with words in the form of a question and an answer that at first sight seem rather strange and misplaced. 8, 9 We have a little sister they would say in those days, and her breasts are not yet grown. What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver on her. If she is a door, we will enclose her with panels of cedar. This leads us on to the subject of how a covenant relationship of love begins. There are two things to note.

1. Understand the responsibility of others

1 See the need to be discerning. The friends seem to be recalling something that the Bride had often told them about. She would quote the words of her brothers when she was younger. They, it seems, were responsible for bringing her up, she presumably being an orphan. We have a little sister they would say in those days, and her breasts are not yet grown. What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for? Even though she was still young at the time the brothers were aware of their responsibility to find a husband for her. Cultures differ, of course, and perhaps if we were responsible for bringing up a little girl (or a boy for that matter) we might be slow to think that it was our responsibility to arrange a marriage for her. However, surely it is part of the responsibility of whoever is bringing a child up to see that they are properly prepared for marriage. We may not go to the extent of arranging a marriage as in some cultures but there is a responsibility to bring up children to be marriageable in the best sense, to delicately and appropriately teach them the facts of life (as they are usually called), to help them as best we can to meet the right sort of prospective husband or wife, etc. It may be the Lord’s will that the child we are bringing up should remain single but we don’t know that and should assume that it is most likely that they will one day marry.

Of course, there is, if anything, an even greater responsibility to see that children under our care come to trust in the Lord Jesus – that they are married to him, as it were. This responsibility extends beyond our own children to any we know who like children are ignorant and vulnerable and likely to go astray. While they are still young we must be thinking of how we can lead people to Christ.

2 See the need to act. It seems that there was some discussion among the brothers about how they should deal with this particular matter and we may want to debate things like what we tell children when and what steps we take to help them in this area, however the idea of simply leaving it to work itself out is surely wrong. One thing they were clear on was this If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver on her. If she is a door, we will enclose her with panels of cedar. In other words, if she tends to be shy and chaste, modest and restrained in her dealings with boys then we can encourage her to show herself off to best advantage and all will be well. If, on the other hand, she proves to have a tendency to be promiscuous, if she is a bit of flirt then we will have to take steps to protect her from being taken advantage of. Girls differ in their personalities and it is incumbent on parents or guardians to get to know the children they are responsible for so that they can steer them in the right direction. ‘Dad, I’ve been invited to Jason’s party and it doesn’t finish until midnight’; ‘Mum, can I go to the ball?’; ‘Is it okay for me to go and do some studying at Darren’s house?’ I think those who are bringing up young girls will want to answer such questions in different ways depending not only on how old the child is but her personality.

Again, the same thing applies in the spiritual realm. For various reasons some are more drawn to other religions and philosophies than others. We are all different and we all struggle with different sins. Where we have responsibility towards others we therefore take great care that no-one should be led astray. For example, what books we recommend to people.

2. Face your own growing responsibility in this matter

The sort of response one would seek from a mature young girl is the one in verse 10 I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers. In other words, even though I am now fast becoming a mature young woman, I am determined to be chaste and virtuous. I am a virgin and I intend to remain so until the day I marry. It is not that I am not interested in boys. Rather it is that I’m determined to wait until I marry until I become intimate with a man. By this means a young woman can win the heart of a Lover such as the one described here - Thus I have become in his eyes like one bringing contentment. It could be one bringing or one receiving contentment. Literally it is Thus I the Shulamite have become in the eyes of Sholomo like one receiving/bringing Shalom. Who will want you if you are ready to go off with more or less anyone who comes along? People are looking for constancy and commitment. True love is marked by such an attitude. It is a great pity when young women get it into their heads that the way to win love and favour is by being willing to sleep with a boy before marriage. The temptation presents itself in various forms all the way from the temptation to promiscuously sleep around with just about everyone through to the temptation to give in to your fiancé and sleep with him before your wedding night. Such a sin is always a mistake. The way to give a man contentment is to be willing to wait.

In verses 11, 12 she uses a different figure to express her attitude. In verse 11 she says Solomon had a vineyard in Baal Hamon; he let out his vineyard to tenants. Each was to bring for its fruit a thousand shekels {c25 lbs/11.5 k} of silver. Then in verse 12 she speaks of herself as a vineyard But my own vineyard is mine to give. Back in 1:6 she spoke of her brothers making her take care of their vineyards causing her to neglect her won, that is herself. Perhaps they are the tenants referred to here. Certainly Solomon probably owned many vineyards. However, he did not own her. Nevertheless, she is willing to give the fruit of her vineyard (her affections, time, energy) all to him - the thousand shekels are for you, O Solomon. She adds and two hundred {c5lbs/2.3k} are for those who tend its fruit. She is not suggesting that no-one else can get a look in. She'll give each member of her family (those who brought her up) their due, but Solomon is first in her life.

So, as far as marriage is concerned young people ought to be chaste, waiting for the time when, in the Lord’s will, they find the man or woman they will marry. You have a vineyard, as it were, that is yours to give. Don’t give it away until the right time. Keep it until it is time to marry. Similarly, don’t throw your life away on empty human philosophy. Give the income from your vineyard to the owner of the vineyard not to anyone else. Be devoted to him.

4. How should a covenant relationship of love end?

In verse 13 Solomon responds warmly to her words as he speaks for the last time You who dwell in the gardens with friends in attendance, let me hear your voice! Many love to hear the voice of this sweet girl but he especially. Again and again from every direction you hear it noted how important in the marriage relationship communication is. When couples stop speaking, and especially when they stop listening, trouble is ahead. Here is a good motto for all husbands – listen to your wife! Say to her regularly let me hear your voice. On a higher plane this is how Jesus speaks to believers. Let me hear your voice. He loves for us to come to him in prayer. Remember that. He has placed us in gardens of delight (a picture of the church), he has given us friends to attend us (brothers and sisters in Christ) but he wants to hear our voice in prayer.

She in turn then responds to him by repeating the phrase (14) Come away, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or like a young stag on the spice-laden mountains. It is very like 2:17. The ending then is not quite what we may have expected – not the two of them together in a warm embrace but the husband listening for the wife’s voice and she calling to her husband to come away with her. It seems that he is not there at present but she is full of anticipation about their next encounter. She is looking forward to being with him forever.

This is very realistic then. Marriage is inevitably a series of meetings and partings. Eventually, there is the parting of death. Marriage is ‘Till death us do part’. However, in Christ even then there is a reunion to look forward to – a reunion of brotherly and sisterly togetherness forever in heaven. The Christian life too is a series of drawings near to God until that day when Christ comes again in glory. Then we will be with him forever and forever and there will be no parting.

In a love which cannot cease I am his and he is mine forever.

The nature of love in its maturity

Text Song of Songs 7:1-8:4 Date 11/09/22 Place Childs Hill Baptist

I want us to look again this evening at Song of Solomon. We have considered the courtship and the marriage between the two lovers in the book, the King and his beloved Shulamite. We have considered the falling out and separation that threatened the relationship in Chapter 5 and led to the beautiful reconciliation that brings us down to the end of Chapter 6.

Tonight I want us to look at 7:1-8:4 where we see the relationship between these two in its maturity. Once again, there are lessons for us to learn about a covenant relationship both on the horizontal and the vertical planes. Here we may learn both about mature married love and about a mature Christian relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. These verses are full of instruction.

1. Consider the observations and desires that characterise true and mature husbandly love

The institution of marriage continues to be under much pressure in our day. Not only has the attempt been made to obscure marriage by allowing same sex marriages but real marriages are also under pressure from all directions. It is not simply that marriages often fail to work out after a short while but in some cases there are divorces after 10, 20, even sometimes 30 years of marriage. There seems to be a widespread failure to understand that one of the great things about marriage, ideally, is that it should get better and better as it goes on. It is foolish to think that after a few years a couple has experienced all the joys there are to experience in married life. Perhaps this is one of the factors that makes the divorce rate so high – that many seem to think like this. Or it may be the other way round - may be expectation is high but realisation low. The marriage relationship is meant to be a developing, a maturing thing, a relationship of increasing and growing intimacy that gets better and better as the years go by. Sadly, it is not always like that.

Now if this is true of the marriage relationship, how much more so of the covenant relationship between the believer and his Lord, that marriage so imperfectly reflects. Conversion really is only the beginning. How much more there is in store, even before we reach heaven.

The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets

Before we reach the heavenly field or walk the golden streets.

At first sight some of the verses in Chapter 7 may seem rather familiar but if we look more carefully we will see change and development. Here we are observing the lovers at a more mature stage in their relationship – after the courtship, after the marriage, after certain setbacks and reconciliations that have strengthened the relationship. When you read the opening verses of Chapter 7 your mind immediately goes back to the description of the bride that the groom gave on their wedding night (Chapter 4). There are definite affinities, even repetitions, but also certain differences and additions. No doubt the writer is following the same pattern to help us to compare the two descriptions. We immediately notice it is a fuller and more sensual description. Things have moved on from the wedding night. Then he saw that she was perfect for him and so he gave a sevenfold description of her. Now he sees it even more so and so this time his description has ten items! This is also the same number of items found in the description she gives of him in Chapter 5. Christ enables his own to grow evermore lovely by letting them become ever more like him.

1. Consider the observations that characterise true husbandly love in its maturity

Previously he began with her face and did not go much further. Here he begins with her feet and works his way up to her hair. Perhaps the thing to note there is how as true love develops. It sees more and more things to admire. Things once considered insignificant perhaps are now seen in a better light. Solomon is here answering the question of why so much attention should be paid to the Shulamite. The description is intimate and personal but not lustful, perverted or disrespectful. He observes her

• Feet - How beautiful your sandalled feet, O prince’s daughter! Perhaps at this point the beloved is dancing or at least turning around (giving a twirl!). Hence the observation first of her sandalled feet. He uses a term of the highest respect for her - prince’s daughter. This reminds us of the exalted state of those who trust in Christ. They are not left to go barefoot but are given sandals, as it were, just as in the wilderness, God made it so that the Israelites shoes never wore out. Like the Shulamite they are nobodies by nature but they have become prince's daughters, royalty, by the grace of God.
• Legs - Your graceful legs are like jewels, the work of an artist’s hands. This follows on. He is thinking probably not only of the shapeliness of her legs but also of their movement – like a jewelled pendant swinging back and forth in time. An artist has been at work to bring this about. It is God who makes beautiful legs and he is the one who enables believers to stand and to dance with joy too, to his glory. 
• Navel - 2 Your navel is a rounded goblet that never lacks blended wine. Think here of a goblet full of wine. Whether he can see her navel or not is unclear. Perhaps it is covered. By likening it to a glass of wine he is saying she is like a satisfying drink to him. So husbands should see their wives and so Christ sees his church.
• Waist - Your waist is a mound of wheat encircled by lilies. This time the picture is of wheat stacked up as it would be at harvest time and encircled with flowers. He is probably thinking of the slimness of her waist and the flowers on her dress. This time it is food then rather than drink but again there is an abundance. It speaks of the way Christ sees the church and is satisfied in it.
• Breasts – 3 Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle. This is the same phrase as in 4:5. As we said then, this is not something we would normally speak about but this is an intimate moment. He does not mean, of course, that her cleavage looked just like two four legged fawns. Rather, he is thinking of the gentleness, the softness of baby deer lying with their legs tucked under. Breasts again speak of provision and abundance.
• Neck - 4 Your neck is like an ivory tower. This may seem a strange description. He is thinking of the smoothness and the length and perhaps the whiteness of her neck. Believers, like ivory, are costly and precious to the Saviour.
• Eyes - Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon by the gate of Bath Rabbim. Heshbon was the old Amorite capital. Her eyes are like the pools there - large, deep and clear. Eyes are often mentioned when we think of love. Christ looks into our eyes and he sees us. He looks with complacency if we are looking to him.
• Nose - Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon looking towards Damascus. Again this seems a little strange to our ears. Some think a very small nose is the desirable thing but he is thinking here of a straight nose not a crooked one, a strong feature. Straightness and vigilance are further qualities that the Lord looks for in us and admires when he sees.
• Head – 5 Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel. As Mount Carmel dominates the north west of Canaan near the Mediterranean with grandeur, so her head caps it all. Carmel was marked by fruitfulness and it is where Elijah led that great victory over the prophets of Baal. Perhaps we should think of the way Christ looks to us to stand out for him in fruitfulness and faithfulness. When he sees that he is delighted.
• Hair - Your hair is like royal tapestry; the king is held captive by its tresses. Her hair has a richness and a beauty all its own. It is silky and full of colour. He imagines himself tied down by her tresses, he is so drawn to this aspect of her beauty. A woman’s hair, as the New Testament remarks, is her glory. Note the royal reference again. We do find it hard to believe that Christ should show such an interest in us but he does. Think of how he reacted to the amazing faith of the centurion. So he seeks such virtues in us who believe. Do we remember just how highly we are regarded by Christ? We must realise how great his love for us is.

2. Consider the desires that characterise true husbandly love in its maturity

In verse 6 he sums her up How beautiful you are and how pleasing, my love, with your delights! To God his people are Hephzibah – the Lord delights in us. Then in verse 7 he uses a picture to sum up Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. She stands tall and steady, graceful, elegant. Her breasts are like fruit, dates perhaps, growing on the palm. Fruitfulness is a common picture of productivity in the Christian life.

Then in verses 8 and 9 he uses two images to describe his desire for this woman, his wife. Firstly, he thinks of embracing and caressing her. I said, I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit. May your breasts be like clusters of the vine …. Just as a man may hug a tree in order to climb it so he pictures himself embracing his beloved intimately and coming ever nearer to her fruit. He then speaks of taking hold of her fruit – caressing her. Think of holding a lovely bunch of succulent grapes.

Secondly, he thinks of her intimate kisses. The fragrance of your breath like apples, which continues the fruit image and your mouth like the best wine. There should be a fragrance about God’s people. In our singing and speaking and in all our lives there should be something of the aroma of Christ.

And so they fall asleep, arm in arm, embracing.
2. Consider the elements that characterise a mature response to true husbandly love
Then in 7:9b-8:4 we have the Shulamite’s response to all this. How does she react? Is it ‘Not to tonight dear’ or ‘Oh you are a soppy one’? No, she responds appropriately. As he sleeps, she speaks of her love for him.

1. Mature commitment

In 9b she takes up his image of kisses being like wine in the mouth and she says May the wine go straight to my beloved, flowing gently over lips and teeth. Then in verse 10 we have I belong to my beloved, and his desire is for me. We have had similar phrases in 2:16 and 6:3. If you look at the three phrases carefully you will observe a deepening love and security.

She puts her possession of the beloved first and her possession of him second (My beloved is mine and I am his).

The second time she reverses that, suggesting a greater sense of security.

Here she reverts to putting the fact that she belongs to him first, then expresses her desire for him and does not even mention her possessing him. The word for desire is a very strong one.

How great are our desires for Christ?

2. Willing desires to see love renewed

As he wakes, she then speaks again. She has a plan. 11, 12 Come, my beloved, she says let us go to the countryside, let us spend the night in the villages. Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates are in bloom - there I will give you my love. We need to get away she says. We need to spend time alone. We need to be out from all these distractions and interruptions.

This is how mature love responds then. It is not just young lovers who need time alone but those who have been married for some time. It is difficult with children, especially as they grow older and are around longer but somehow husbands and wives have to be alone together. The Ezzos’ talk of sofa time and the need for children to realise that sometimes mum and dad come first.

If this is so in marriage how much more so when it comes to intimacy with Christ. It is a struggle sometimes but with sanctified viciousness we must guard our times of being alone with the Lord to pray and read his Word. Vital.

Are we finding the time? The mention of being up early is perhaps a clue to this. Note too the idea of looking for evidence of growth. Love has to be expressed if it is real love. If we really love the Lord it will find expression. We need to find time for that – together and alone.

In verse 13 she says The mandrakes send out their fragrance, and at our door is every delicacy, both new and old, that I have stored up for you, my beloved. She has it all prepared. Mandrake plants are part of the potato family and produce sweet smelling flowers. They were also renowned for their aphrodisiac qualities. Whether that is true or not, their very mention shows that she has everything ready. I suppose today you might speak of flowers and chocolates, perhaps. The plenty and variety and the phrase new and old are very suggestive in both the horizontal and vertical spheres.

3. Eager longing for ever greater intimacy

Finally, in the opening verses of Chapter 8, she speaks of her desire for ever greater intimacy with her beloved. Things differ from culture to culture but in many middle eastern cultures even today displays of affection in public even between husbands and wives are taboo. The only people you see kissing in public are brothers and sisters. That is why here she says If only you were to me like a brother, who was nursed at my mother’s breasts! Then, if I found you outside, I would kiss you, and no-one would despise me. She wishes he was her little brother. She would like to be free to kiss him when she wished. She goes on (2) I would lead you and bring you to my mother’s house – she who has taught me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the nectar of my pomegranates. This is another picture of great intimacy, the intimacy she longs for with him and that all husbands and wives ought to long for. Finally, in verse 3 she says His left arm is under my head and his right arm embraces me. There they are alone, intimately embracing, making love in complete bliss, as it should be.

3. Consider the repeated warning about the need for patience in all this

We close with 8:4 Daughters of Jerusalem I charge you: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. This repeats the warning previously found in 2:7 and 3:5. It is such a wonderful picture that we are immediately attracted and there is the danger then of so wanting such a thing that we try and bring it about immediately. However, such a thing comes only with great patience and perseverance. If you are a child you need to concentrate firstly on growing up to be a man or a woman that someone might want to marry. You don’t need to worry at all about marriage now. If you are still single and would still like to be married you know that there is no point just marrying anyone. Great care and patience is necessary. That is true especially in courtship. Even when we are married we must see that the closeness that we have seen in other couples does not come overnight. Marriage is hard work. There is a need for perseverance and persistence, for fresh starts and increasing delight and devotion.

Something similar can be said about intimacy with Christ. That does not come over night either. Growing in grace is something that again demands hard work and much patience. If we walk in the right way the Lord Jesus will increasingly delight in us. We also ought to respond with deeper and growing desires for a close walk with him. Things ought to get better and better, closer and closer.

Christ's Beauty and where he is to be found

Text Song of Songs 5:9-6:13 Date 04/09/22 Place Childs Hill Baptist

A little while ago we began a series on the Song of Songs. We got as far as Song of Songs 5:2-8 but then left things. I thought we could look at the last three sections over the next three weeks, beginning tonight with Song of Songs 5:9-6:13.

In the first eight verses of Song of Songs 5 we have a description of a scene that we can probably imagine. It is night. Here is a wife in bed. She is alone. She is half asleep, half awake. Her husband is not there. Then she hears him knocking at the front door and calling her to open up. He is out in the cold and damp night air and the quicker she can open up the better. But instead of going down to open the door she shouts down ‘I’ve gone to bed. I can’t come down and open the door for you. It’s too much bother.’ He then starts to try and open the door some other way. She hears him and decides eventually to go down. However, by the time she gets down to open the door to him he has gone. He has given up trying to get in and gone off somewhere else. Now she is really unhappy. She starts calling after him and looking for him. She wanders away from the house out into the city. The night watchmen spot her and, thinking she is up to no good, manhandle her and pull off the cloak that she has thrown round her shoulders. In desperation she cries out to the women of Jerusalem to tell her where she can find her beloved.

The Song of Songs has things to teach us about the relationship between men and women leading up to and in marriage and then by analogy how it can be and should be between Christ and his people. When we considered Chapter 5:1-8 we saw what it has to teach us about how often as believers our fellowship with the Lord is not what it should be. So often we are deaf to his calls and his pleadings and then when we suddenly decide we want close fellowship with him, it does not happen and we are in despair. This week I want to continue looking at this subject as we come to 5:9-6:13.

First, we have a description from the beloved of her lover, then something about what had gone wrong in their relationship. Then there is another description of the beloved and something more on what had happened. Finally, there is a call to return. As we have said several times in the past, this love story can be understood both on the horizontal and vertical levels. Here we are particularly thinking of how it applies to the vertical level – the relationship between Christ and his church.

1. Consider the beauty of Christ

In 5:9, in response to her plea for help in finding her beloved, the daughters of Jerusalem ask the Shulammite woman How is your beloved better than others, most beautiful of women? How is your beloved better than others, that you charge us so? This leads to a wonderful description of her beloved. It is symbolic language no doubt. It reminds us a little, although there are some differences, of the description of Jesus given by John in Revelation 1. Having lost sight of her beloved the woman remembers just how wonderful he is. In longing to see him again she is taken up with a description of his glory. What she says here can be applied to the Lord Jesus Christ. We ought to be constantly reminding ourselves of his beauty and wonder.

1. His outstanding nature. She begins by saying (10) My beloved is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand. He shines out. In human terms he is a picture of health. Even among ten thousand she could easily pick him out. He is outstanding. This of course is the truth about Christ. No-one can begin to compare with him. There then follows a head to toe description.

2. His nobility. 11 His head is purest gold; his hair is wavy and black as a raven. He is not simply a king with a crown. His very head is gold. His hair is not grey with age but black as that of a raven and full of life. How noble is her beloved and how noble is Christ the King of kings. Look always to him.

3. His tenderness. She then says (12) His eyes are like doves by the water streams, washed in milk, mounted like jewels. We have noted in the past how common doves are in this book. The white of the eyes is probably in mind here and streams is no doubt a reference to the tears of love in his eyes. His pupils are perfectly set in his eyes as jewels might be set – not too close together or far apart, not too deep set or protruding. All this conveys a picture of great tenderness and compassion. He looks with kindness upon sinners like us. He looks with love and tenderness, with compassion and pity. How those eyes weep when we sin against him.

4. His redolent look. 13 His cheeks are like beds of spice yielding perfume. Isaiah describes how the Lord’s beard was plucked from his cheeks. By his suffering and death he released fragrant perfume, the perfume of his saving work. His very look is redolent, full, abundant. So much is there.

5. His fragrant words. Verse 13 goes on His lips are like lilies dripping with myrrh. Again a reference to perfume and to myrrh in particular. The lilies are no doubt some red flower not what we think of as lilies today. Again there is a sense of fullness, of abundance and again to Christ’s humanity. You remember that when he spoke people were amazed. They had never heard anyone speak like he spoke. He speaks still today in his Word and what a world there is in it. What wonderful things come from it. Every line drips with fragrance. Listen to his Word and obey.

6. His gracious works. 14 His arms are rods of gold set with chrysolite. It is not entirely clear what jewels are in mind here. Perhaps beryl or topaz. The picture seems to be of arms or hands made up of golden rings or rods – suggesting perhaps ripples of muscle – and then the finger nails are yellow jewels. It speaks of the strength of the lover and the way he is able to protect and to help his beloved. Certainly the Lord Jesus is active for his people. He upholds us and works for us at all times.

7. His strength. The second part of verse 14 says His body is like polished ivory decorated with sapphires. This speaks of symmetry and beauty again but also of strength. We take it with 15a His legs are pillars of marble set on bases of pure gold. Together we get the idea of one who is solid and strong, unmoveable. No-one can stand against him. The victory is always his and if we are under his protection we need fear nothing.

8. His splendid appearance. The rest of verse 15 says His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars. We are speaking here of his over all appearance, his bearing or stance. There is something about his very look that is striking and commanding. It is a wonderful look, one that demands respect. It is like looking at a forest of tall strong cedars of Lebanon.

9. His sweetness. 16 His mouth is sweetness itself. Not just his words but his kisses of affection and in the very way he looks. How kind, how tender, how loving.

10. His loveliness. It is summed up in the phrase he is altogether lovely. No-one can match him.

There is a horizontal application here too, I’m sure. For husbands or prospective husbands, here is the perfect model. This is how we should be. It is rather embarrassing if we take it on the purely physical level. What a challenge, though, if we see beyond that to the spiritual meaning. Are we noble, tender, fragrant, gracious, strong and sweet? Are our looks, words and actions towards our wives what they should be?

The beloved concludes This is my beloved, this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

Is he your beloved? Is he your friend? We have every reason to be proud of him. We have every reason to be confident in him. He is perfect. Give thanks for such a perfect Saviour. If you don’t know him I urge you to come to him and put your faith in him.

2. Know where Christ is most likely to be found

As we come into Chapter 6 we remember that this wonderful description has been prompted by a sense of desolation. This magnificent lover is apparently lost. He is nowhere to be found. The woman he loves is full of desire for him but she does not know where he is. The women of Jerusalem say to her (1) Where has your beloved gone, most beautiful of women? Which way did your beloved turn, that we may look for him with you? They are eager to help her to find him again. But it is not the women of Jerusalem who find him. It is not they who answer where he is but her. Now, of course, this is something of a dream sequence and full of symbolism and so it comes out in a slightly strange way but there is a great lesson here.

1. Where is he to be found? She says (2) My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spices …. Where is that? Well, we have already learned that his garden is the beloved herself. Where is Jesus to be found? In his church, with his people. Yes, but the whole problem was that he was not there. When he had come for her, she had brushed him off and he had gone. But then what happened? She went to look for him. Yes, and at first she did not find him. But then, it appears, as she described him she began to remember how wonderful he was and they were reunited. It sounds weird in real terms but believers know the experience in practice. We are backslidden or cold hearted, we are estranged from the Lord. Then we start reading about him or someone speaks about him or we start speaking of him for some reason and our hearts are strangely warmed and we begin to remember his glory and beauty and suddenly somehow he is there again.

2. Why did he come to his garden? He came to the garden to browse in the gardens and to gather lilies. Christ loves nothing better than to enjoy the delights of his people’s presence. He gathers lilies there, as it were, lilies of praise. It astounds us to think of it but we must never forget the delight that God has in his people. How he loves to browse there! How he loves to gather flowers from among us.

3. What is her response? Verse 3 I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine; he browses among the lilies. It is in fellowship with Christ that true love shows itself and expresses itself. We love Christ and he loves us, yes, at all times. Nothing can ever sever that bond.#

It is like marriage. What God has joined together nobody is to put asunder. However, a marriage must be more than a piece of paper. It must be more than sharing the same bed. It must be marked by intimacy and sharing, by closeness and togetherness. This is the fuel that keeps a relationship alive. And in the same way our relationship with Christ must be kept alive. We need to be in his presence. As it has been put - we must practice the presence of God. We must allow him to browse among the lilies.

3. Consider the beauty of the church

This leads on to a description of the beloved. This points us again to the beauty of God’s people, of the church.

1. Her attraction to Christ. He says (4) You are as beautiful, my darling, as Tirzah, as lovely as Jerusalem, majestic as troops with banners. Tirzah means pleasantness or sweetness. It had been a royal city in Israel until Omri built Samaria. The images are meant to convey ideas of beauty, majesty, splendour. This is how Christ sees his people – the noble army of the godly. He says (5) Turn your eyes from me; they overwhelm me. He is amazed at what he sees. He is bashful in her presence.

Now to apply this to Christ and his church seems at first faintly ridiculous. Yet, God delights to use these very human images to describe such things and although we must never forget that all we have is from him this is nevertheless the way that the Bible speaks. Too often our worship is man-centred and we do not think about things from God’s side. This is certainly one element we rarely consider at all.

He then repeats part of the description from Chapter 4.

2. Her hair. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead. He looks next at her black hair which is long and perhaps this very moment is being untied so that it can cascade down on to her shoulders. It reminds him of a flock of black goats coming down the mountain in Gilead. Probably we should think of it as seen from a distance, across the valley, with the flock running to left and to right.

3. Her teeth. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing. Each has its twin; not one of them is alone. Someone once asked why missing teeth can look so charming in little children but so ugly on adults. Thanks to modern dentistry we don’t see too many adults with missing teeth. There was a time when it was more common. I believe that is why in early photographs you rarely see people smiling. People weren’t more morose then they just knew that if they smiled it wouldn’t look very nice. This woman has no such problem. She didn’t have crooked teeth either. When she smiled there was perfect symmetry – each tooth on one side is matched by another on the other side. Again using a rustic image he says they are like sheep just shorn and washed clean. The very image is designed to provoke a smile – which on her looked so lovely. It speaks also of the purity and innocence and freshness that characterised her.

4. Her temples. Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. By her temples he probably means her cheeks as well. Like other fruits pomegranates are often associated with romance in ancient literature. Here he thinks of one cut in two to reveal a red interior. She is full of colour. Even through the veil he can see that. She has the blush of innocence, the ruddiness of health and the pink bloom of youth.

This teaches us not only to admire the beauty of a wife but that Christ is full of delight in gazing upon his people.

5. Her unique nature. 8, 9a Sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines, and virgins beyond number; but my dove, my perfect one, is unique, the only daughter of her mother, the favourite of the one who bore her. She seems to him unique and he sees her in the same way. There is no-one like her. Again, it is hard to think of Christ seeing us like that but we know we are unique and that Christ loves us if we are believers.

6. Her blessed nature

9b, 10 The maidens saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her. Who is this that appears like the dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in procession?

4. More on where Christ is to be found and a call to come back to him

Verses 11 and 12 provide a little recap.

1. Where is he to be found? I went down to the grove of nut trees he says. Christ s found in the world, where growth is going on.

2. Why is he found there? To look at the new growth in the valley, to see if the vines had budded or the pomegranates were in bloom. Christ is looking for growth in his people and so he is likely to be found where they are.

3. What happened? 12 Before I realised it, my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people. The reality here trumps the picture.

4. A call to come to back to him. 13 Come back, come back, O Shulammite; come back, come back, that we may gaze on you! Say the daughters of Jerusalem. She answers Why would you gaze on the Shulammite as on the dance of Mahanaim? We need to be humble but we need to know that Christ delights in us and so we must always come back to him.

Close Covenant Communion

Text Song of Songs 5:2-8 Date 08/03/20 Place Childs Hill Baptist

We are looking at the Song of Solomon and we are learning about covenant love. We are learning, on the horizontal level, about marriage and the love between a man and his wife, and we are learning on the vertical level about God’s covenantal love towards his people.

Already we have looked at the courting couple described in the opening chapters and then the wedding procession and the wedding night. Today I want us to look at the beginning of the episode that starts in 5:2 and again I want us to learn from it, both on the horizontal and vertical levels – about human relationships and heavenly ones. I want us to look first at what happens in verses 2-8. We will go on to the description given in verses 10-16 and prompted by the question in verse 9 another time.

Close covenant communion – why it is so rare?

In verses 2-8 we have a description of a scene that we can probably imagine without too much difficulty. It is night. Here is the woman in bed. She is alone. She is half asleep, half awake. Her husband is not there. Then she hears him knocking at the front door and calling her to open up. He is out in the cold and damp night air and the quicker she can open up the better. But instead of going down to open the door to him she shouts down the stairs ‘I’ve gone to bed. I can’t come down and open the door for you. It’s too much bother.’ He then starts to try and open the door some other way. She hears him and decides eventually to go down. However, by the time she gets down to open the door to him, he has gone. He has given up trying to get in and gone off somewhere else. Now she is really unhappy. She starts calling after him and looking for him. She wanders away from the house out into the city. The night watchmen spot her and thinking she is up to no good manhandle her and pull off the cloak that she has thrown round her shoulders. In desperation, she cries out to the women of Jerusalem to tell her where she can find her lover.

It is similar in some ways then to what we read in Chapter 3, only this time the dream seems more real in some parts. Throughout the sequence the spotlight switches from the woman to the man alternately. It is a little like watching a tennis rally or an animated conversation between two people – back and for, back and for. The whole scene reminds us of the adage that true love never runs smoothly. This is true not only of courtship but also after a marriage has been consummated. Some Christians get themselves into a needless frustration and disappointment because they do not have a perfect marriage. This can be especially acute if the courtship has been relatively brief and easy.

You can imagine I’m sure. Here are a young Christian couple, Tim and Sarah. They met at a Christian conference, fell in love and were married within 12 months. It’s been a blissful courtship, hardly a cross word. Then they have their first major disagreement over something. They are shattered – not just because they’ve argued and perhaps said things they shouldn’t, but the illusion of a perfect marriage has well and truly been blown. Now a passage like this shows us that even an idealised marriage like this one is likely to face problems. It is not good when that happens, of course, but it is not the end of the marriage.

Similarly, for those who have come to trust in Christ there can be unrealistic expectations concerning the Christian life. Here is a young man, Daniel. He’s been converted a year and he’s read his Bible every day since. Then one busy day he is little under the weather and with one thing and another he doesn’t find the time to read Scripture and he falls asleep at the end of the day his Bible open but unread. The next morning he is shattered by his failure. Or take, Becky. She gave her heart to the Lord six months ago and every day since then she has found time to pray to the Lord but this week has been a difficult one for her and one day was so busy she never prayed at all really. You can imagine how she feels. Again this passage is here firstly to remind us that there are no perfect Christians. We all fail in many ways. It is how we cope with such failures that matters.

1. Our all too common state

In verse 2 the beloved speaks and she says I slept but my heart was awake. In other words she was half asleep, half awake. It is clearly night time, which is a potent picture of the nature of the life we lead here in earth. The pictures of day and night, light and darkness, are used in different ways in Scripture. In one sense becoming a Christian is seeing the light. It is passing from the ignorance and darkness of sin into the Kingdom of light. However, in many ways it is still night time while we are on earth – until Christ comes again and brings a new day. Because of this it is very easy for us to grow sleepy and not to be watchful. You remember how when Jesus when he wanted the disciples to pray with him in Gethsemane sadly found them sleeping.

Sadly, we have to say that most often Christians are found in a state of spiritual sleepiness. We are not sound asleep it may be true but we are not fully awake either. Our most common state is of appearing to be asleep although thankfully our hearts have been awakened and we are at least open to spiritual realities.

Is that your state today? Is that often your state? As we shall see, it is a dangerous state to be in.

There is an application here to Christian marriages too. Too often they are rather sleepy things. Things muddle on fairly well but there is a lack of pro-activity and sometimes when a strain comes something gives. Wives must take care not to grow cool towards their husbands or husbands to their wives. The fires of passion and commitment need to be tended to or they will go out.

2. A Lover’s plea

Next in verse 2 she says Listen! My lover is knocking: Open to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. My head is drenched with dew, my hair with the dampness of the night. She can hear his knock at the door of the house they share. He knocks and he calls. He wants her to open the door and for him to come in to her. He calls her by four different terms of affection - my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. The word my is thus repeated, emphasising their unity. The terms themselves focus on their family nearness, his care for her, her purity and her dignity.

A Christian husband may not use these terms often (perhaps he should) but he should think of his wife in these terms.

Sister. In the New Testament married believers are spoken of as heirs together of the gift of life. The Christian wife is not some sort of inferior person who gets her religion via her husband. No, they are joint heirs, both are priests to God. Her calling may be to submit to him in the marriage bond but they stand before God equal – saved sinners both, brother and sister in the Lord. Your wife is your sister now and when she is no longer your wife in heaven, she will still be your sister.

Darling. Love must be there for any marriage to work, of course. It is the calling of the husband above all to love his wife. Whether he calls her darling or not he must show his wife that he loves her.

Dove. In the New Testament husbands are told not to be harsh with their wives. They must always be gentle. They should never shout. They should never be brusque or hard. Think of her as a pure, gentle white dove and treat her accordingly.

Flawless. Husbands must respect their wives. They must treat them with the utmost dignity and honour. When we speak to them or about them that is paramount.

Now the great model for all this is the Lord Jesus Christ. This is how he speaks of his people. He is our elder brother. He is full of love for his own. How gently he treats us and how pure he desires us to be. He justifies us from every sin by his death on the cross so that when he sees us he sees us as flawless.

No here is pictured for us this perfect loving one knocking at the door and calling to us. Inevitably we think of the words of Jesus Revelation 3:20 Here I am I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with him and he with me. Often used evangelistically, they speak first to sleepy Christians who are neglecting close covenant communion with the Saviour.

3. Our all too common response

So how does this woman respond to this wonderfully loving approach? She says (3) I have taken off my robe - must I put it on again? I have washed my feet - must I soil them again? I’m in bed now she says. I’m not getting up and getting dressed. I’m not walking across the dirty floor to open up for you. Now she is half asleep and we can forgive a lot when people are half asleep but nevertheless it does show a fearful disregard for this ardent and devoted lover. Instinctively, we feel she is in the wrong here. Why did she not wait up for him? She must have known he was coming. At the very least she could have arranged something with the key. Her attitude is clearly a wrong one.

It is a danger in marriage. Things will only work if there is give and take. Selfishness destroys the bliss of married life. If we think only of ourselves and our comfort then things cannot work. It is no good when one side is wooing and the other is baulking at it.

It typifies our attitude to Christ too often as well. The Lord comes near full for winning words and wooing actions but we do not want to know. How many times have we woken in the morning thinking we ought t begin with the Scriptures but we’ve been reluctant. How slow we are to pray. How unwilling to sit under the preaching of the Word sometimes. We get ourselves so comfortable in this world sometimes that we are unwilling to make the effort necessary to draw near to him.

Is that you at present? Christ is wooing you today - Here I am I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with him and he with me he says pen to me, my sister, my darling, my dove, my flawless one. But you cant make the effort. You’ve come her – that is good – but you’re not willing to go any further or make any more effort.

4. A Lover’s Insistence

Where they were used keys in those days tended to be much larger than those we have today. Often there was room enough for a hand in the keyhole. Often there was no key just a latch. Here she says (4) My lover thrust his hand through the latch-opening. As she looks towards the door she sees that he is trying to let himself in by putting his hand through the opening in an effort to unhitch the latch.

Sometimes in the marriage relationship it can be like that. One or other is trying to get in to the other’s life as it were, trying to find a way of reconnecting. It is frustrating. If the other would simply open the door a little entry would be easy but they refuse. They are all shut up to you. We must try and find ways in where we can. Sometimes there is a shared interest, although many husbands and wives differ in their tastes and hobbies. Where both are Christians there is always the gospel that unites, although there is room for disagreement in things there. A marriage is only going to work if when there are barriers between the two, a door in the way, both work at opening it.

Something similar can be said about the relationship between Christ and his people. Holman Hunt painted a famous picture of Jesus standing at the door and knocking. One version is down in St Paul’s. It is often noted that the latch of the door is on the inside. That is correct. Christ is sovereign and he is the one who opens the door of the heart in conversion. However, when he speaks to the believer, he calls on him to open the door. As here he will sometimes thrust his hand trough the latch-hole insistently but we note here that that does not gain him entry. Christ is insistent. He wants to come into your life. However, it is up to you to act upon his invitations.

5. The proper response

So having now been fully awoken, the woman begins to react as she should have from the beginning. Note the four stages.

1. My heart began to pound for him. Her heart was awake at the beginning of all this but now it was pounding. She could hear and feel it. Oh how she wanted to see her lover. Oh how she wanted to hold him. We must come to that stage as Christians. Too often we are slow and sluggish. Our hearts are not beating very fast. We need to stir ourselves up sometimes. This is the point of preaching – to stir us by placarding Christ before us.

2. (5) I arose to open for my lover. Then she did something about it at last. Again that is what we need to do. You want to pray? Then get out of bed and pray. You want to read his Word. Get up and read.

3. And my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with flowing myrrh, on the handles of the lock. Next she gets hold of the lock to open the door. There is myrrh everywhere. Where has it come from? May be from him – he had put his hand through the lock-hole. May be from her – perhaps she had dipped her hands in it as she went. It was a sign of welcome to him. She is certainly in a very different mood to that which she had showed when he had been knocking. Now she wants to do everything she can to open up and welcome him. That is how we should be at the first sign of his coming near.

4. (6) I opened for my lover. This is where the pounding heart, the getting up and the fiddling with the lock was all leading. She wanted to get that door open and see him. If only she had reacted like this sooner. This is how we should be I our relationships with our husbands or wives – more than ready to open up to them. Responsive to their first approach. Eager to remove any barrier whatsoever. This is how we ought t be as regards close covenant communion with Christ.

6. A Lover’s departure

And then the tragic anti-climax but my lover had left; he was gone. How often that is the experience on both the human and the spiritual level. A wife has waited and waited for her wild man to calm down, for her neglectful husband to pay her attention, for her roving man to settle down but it has never happened and a day has come when the man suddenly wants his wife’s company and he can’t have it. She may not have left him in fact but her time is taken up elsewhere and he misses out. Time and tide wait for no man and if we take our wives or husbands for granted and presume they will always be willing to fit in with us we may have a rude awakening one day.

Spiritually we must reckon with the possibility of spiritual desertion. A mistake we often make is that because God is eternal and can always be sought then we can leave such times to our convenience. Eg when I’m older, later today, another season. However, reality is not like that. The fact is that for various reasons there are seasons when God draws near and if we do not take full advantage of such seasons then and there then we will not have the opportunity again. We can see this I trust on the human level (eg children growing up). There is a mystery here but we must recognise it.

Rabbi Duncan the Scots Hebrew teacher once prayed all the way through the lecture period to the annoyance of some but, as he said, "having gotten in he was loath to leave". He was an ecccentric but there is a lesson there.

7. The inevitable response

Then we read what she did when she realised he had gone.

1. My heart sank at his departure. She was devastated. This what one would expect. This is how a person would be if their husband or wife left or even just went off and they did not know where. If we deliberately push people away the boot may soon be in the other foot. There can be nothing worse for the believer than a sense of spiritual desertion. We are experiencing it as a nation – it can come to churches and individuals too.

2. I looked for him but did not find him. I called him but he did not answer. How frustrating. Do you know anything of this? Why does it happen? Sometimes it is a mystery but at other times we can trace it back to our own sinful neglect. Seek to avoid such things. If you are there – persevere.

3. (7) The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. They beat me, they bruised me; they took away my cloak, those watchmen of the walls! It is difficult top be sure how to take this. This woman under went pain and humiliation at the hands of those who were really there to protect her. It was a case, no doubt, of mistaken identity. Such suffering at the hands of friends can be the lot of those who search for Christ but do not find him. Ministers doing their duty terrify and hurt.

4. (8) Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you - if you find my lover, what will you tell him? Tell him I am faint with love. Finally, we note her plea. She is faint with love. Are you like that today? Faint with love. Then we will pray for you. We will tell the Saviour.

Consummation: Praising, Wooing and Loving

Text Song of Songs 4 Date 01/03/20 Place Childs Hill Baptist

We are looking at The Song of Solomon. It is a love poem describing the love between Solomon and his Shulamite, the lover and his beloved. We are saying that it is here to teach us about covenant love both on the horizontal and the vertical levels. That is to say, it is both about human love and marriage and about the covenant relationship between God and his people, between Christ and his church. We need help in both these areas.

So far we have looked at the courtship between the two that is described in 1:1-3:5. The second half of Chapter 3 describes the wedding procession of the bridal couple. All the focus there is on the groom, on Solomon in all his glory. This week I want us to look at Chapter 4 where we come to love’s consummation. The word consummation means climax, completion or culmination. We use it chiefly to refer to marriage. After the wedding, and not before, comes the consummation when there is physical union. In fact, I believe I’m right in saying that still in some cases a marriage can be annulled on the basis of non-consummation. You sometimes hear the phrase ‘The marriage was not consummated’. In this chapter the focus turns to the bride. The wedding ceremony is over. All the commotion of the day is complete and at last the bride and groom are alone and we come to love’s consummation.

The focus switches to the Bride, although, paradoxically, nearly every verse of this section is spoken by the Groom. He is in fact more prominent as a speaker here than anywhere else in the book. The wedding ceremony is over. All the commotion of the day is complete. At last the Bride and Groom are alone together. At this point the door would normally close and what happened next would be entirely unobserved by any third party.

The story is told of the fanatical disciple of a certain Jewish Rabbi so keen to learn everything he could from his teacher, that he even wanted firsthand knowledge of how to conduct himself in the marriage bed. He hid himself in his master’s bedroom at a time when he knew the Rabbi and his wife would be retiring for the night. Thankfully, he was discovered before he could gain any knowledge of his teacher’s bedroom technique and was quite rightly thrown out.

Here, we are allowed to follow this special couple into the bridal suite itself and discover at least something of what happens next. So we come at last to love’s consummation.

1. Consider how the bridegroom praises his bride just before love’s consummation

First, we have a song of unrivalled beauty sung by Solomon to his virgin bride. In it he praises her in ways that we might not always appreciate but that are similar to eastern traditions still around today such as the wasf sung at traditional Syrian weddings. One commentator describes being on an aeroplane discussing this description with a friend. His friend thought he would try complimenting one of the stewardesses in this fashion. "Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from the hills of Gilead" he said. She was not impressed! We need to see then that these metaphors are important for their associations as much as the pictures they evoke.

We should understand it, on the horizontal plane, as a lesson in how a man should appreciate his wife. This whole section also has something to teach us about how to approach wooing and about foreplay within marriage. We can’t go into it here but if you are wise you will see it.

On the vertical level, it speaks of the beauty of the church that is seen already on earth in embryo but that will be fully revealed at the end of time when Christ comes again to take his people to himself.

1. Where he focuses his thoughts. He begins by saying (1a) How beautiful you are, my darling! Oh, how beautiful! This is how a man ought to think of his wife. Obviously the attraction will be physical at first but as he gets to know her, if she is what she should be, he will see that she also has inner beauty – the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. Where he doesn't see that, he'll do what he can to bring it about. He will love his wife until she is radiant and unblemished in his eyes, caring for her as much as for his own body.

Husbands, are you loving your wives like that? Are they growing more beautiful as you grow in your love for them? Not necessarily outwardly, but inwardly certainly.

Sonnet 104 by Shakespeare “To me, fair friend, you never can be old For as you were when first your eye I eyed Such seems your beauty still." Our model should be Christ and his love for his people.

2. How he describes his bride. Looking at her face, Solomon then goes on to list his bride’s attributes one by one, focusing on seven things. It is all very sensuous. We clarify his meaning first

Her eyes. Your eyes behind your veil he says are doves. At this stage she still has a veil over her face which he is about to remove. He is close enough to see her face, however. He likens her eyes to doves as she had done his. This may be a reference to their whiteness around the pupil or how they dart about. These were gentle, innocent eyes, redolent of her character in general.

Her hair. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from the hills of Gilead. He looks next at her black hair which is long and perhaps this very moment is being untied so that it can cascade down on to her shoulders. It reminds him of a flock of black goats coming down the mountain in Gilead. Probably we should think of it as seen from a distance, across the valley, with the flock running to left and to right.

Her teeth. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn, coming up from the washing. Each has its twin; not one of them is alone. Someone once asked why missing teeth can look so charming in little children but so ugly on adults. Thanks to modern dentistry we don’t see too many adults with missing teeth. There was a time when it was more common. I believe that is why in early photographs you rarely see people smiling. People weren’t more morose then they just knew that if they smiled it wouldn’t look very nice. This woman has no such problem. She didn’t have crooked teeth either. When she smiled there was perfect symmetry – each tooth on one side is matched by another on the other side. Again using a rustic image he says they are like sheep just shorn and washed clean. The very image is designed to provoke a smile – which on her looked so lovely. It speaks also of the purity and innocence and freshness that characterised her.

Her lips. Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely. Your lips, as some wag put it, are there to stop your mouth fraying. They tend to be redder than the rest of the face and it is generally accepted that their redness and shape can be attractive – hence lipstick, lip gloss, etc. Nobody wants dry, chapped or peeling lips. Their thinning is one of many unwelcome changes that occur as we grow older. Here he says her lips look like a scarlet ribbon. Her mouth looks lovely. It is as red as a scarlet ribbon and as shapely as a beautifully tied bow. No doubt her mouth not only looked lovely but spoke truthfully and honestly too.

The sides of her face Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. By her temples he probably means her cheeks as well. Like other fruits pomegranates are often associated with romance in ancient literature. Here he thinks of one cut in two to reveal a red interior. She is full of colour. Even through the veil he can see that. She has the blush of innocence, the ruddiness of health and the pink bloom of youth.

Her neck. Your neck is like the tower of David, built with elegance; on it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. We don’t know exactly where the Tower of David was but it was clearly a tall, straight elegantly built tower where shields would be hung. He compares her neck to it – also long and slender and elegant and decorated with a necklace of silver or gold discs. A double chin, sagging jowls or a ‘chicken neck’ is unappealing. He is thinking of her deportment, her bearing and the way that points to her upright and noble character.

Her cleavage. Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. Below her neck he can see her cleavage, her chest. This is not something we would normally speak about but the two are alone remember and about to consummate their marriage. The description deliberately stops at this point. He does not mean, of course, that her cleavage looked just like two four legged fawns. Rather he is thinking of the gentleness, the softness of baby deer lying with their legs tucked under.

This is how a man should look at his wife. He should love to look at her face. To him she should be beautiful, as we've said. That's right and proper. It's interesting this is where the focus is – on her face not her body. That is right and noble. Of course, it would be superficial to think Solomon's concern is only for outward beauty. Everything else in the Bible warns against such an assumption.

The passage also teaches us how it will be in the world to come and how it is in part now. Paul speaks (Ephesians 5) of Christ giving himself up for the church to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word in order to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish but holy and blameless. This is the work that is going on now. The beautifying work in order to prepare us for that great day. He is working to sanctify us so that we are those who are pure and innocent, with a single eye for his glory, mouths that declare his glory, upright and solid yet tender and gentle in his service. We are not there yet but we will be one day and not only will we gaze on Christ’s beauty but he will also gaze on ours.

3. Consider what he desires to do

In verses 6 and 7 he says Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense. You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you. Now is the time for love’s consummation. He pictures himself entering a garden at evening when its aroma is most intense. He comes in, he sees all her beauty.

That is how a wedding night should be. In to many instances young people have been so impatient that there is no such wedding night. They spoil both the anticipation and the consummation. If you are still unmarried do not make the mistake of forcing your way into the garden too soon. Wait! If such an exhortation is too late then we say turn from sin and find forgiveness and a fresh start in Christ.

But to look higher, see here a picture of the glories of heaven to come, love’s consummation there between Christ and his church. If we are those who truly trust in the Lord Jesus Christ then we will know as we are now known, then we will see him as he is and not only that but he will look on us and he will say All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you. Our beauty is often spotted now. There are many flaws. But not then! Look forward to that glorious day.

2. Consider how the bridegroom woos his bride just before love’s consummation

1. Consider how he calls to her

In verses 8-15 we have a second song from the groom. He begins by calling her to come to him. He pictures her as being far from Jerusalem – up in the mountains of the far north, in places of danger. Come with me he says from Lebanon, my bride, come with me from Lebanon. Descend from the crest of Amana, from the top of Senir, the summit of Hermon, from the lions' dens and the mountain haunts of the leopards. @ It reminds us of the trumpet call that will go out on the last day and the way the angels will gather the elect from the four corners of the world. Out of the mountains and caves and holes in the ground they will stream, the saints of God. All wandering and all danger will be over then. There will be no more fear.

2. Consider how enchanted with her he is

Then in verse 9 he says You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. Is there such a thing as love at first sight? It’s an interesting question. Many people believe in it and they will tell you the story of how they met their wife or husband, falling in love with them at first sight. In reality we have to say there is attraction at first sight that can lead very quickly to love – so quickly that we hardly spot the join. For Solomon here it was like that and continued to be like that – one look was enough, even a small thing like a jewel in her necklace meant so much to him.

It’s a good thing for a husband or wife or a potential husband and wife to think about. What affect does my loved one have on me? Am I moved by how they look, what they do? We ought to be affected even by the small things in a way that is not true of anyone else. And if we look we will find it to be so. We ought to encourage such thoughts.

Or to go higher think about this phrase You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. Imagine how the Shulamite felt to hear King Solomon say such things. Why would he be interested in me? How can what I do make such a difference? On the higher plane, think of these words about the bride coming from Christ’s lips! ‘How can it be?’ we think. How can any little thing I do or say make any difference to the King of the Universe? But such a verse shows us that it does make a difference. You know, believer, the Lord can’t take his eyes off you. He loves you. The smallest things mean so much. I’m sure we see that sometimes but too often we forget. We think that our lives are insignificant, unspecial, mundane. But they are not when we know he loves us. Even on the human level, to know someone loves you makes such a difference. Cf Ecclesiastes 4:7-12. How much more is this so when we know that our Creator and God is enthralled by us?

3. Consider how delighted in her he is. 10, 11 How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice! Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride; milk and honey are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. This is in the same vein. He delights in her. He loves everything about her. The joy she gives is better than wine. Her fragrant perfume is superior to any spice. When she speaks it is as sweet to his ears as wild honey would be to his tongue – milk and honey flow. He clothes also are fragrant with the delights of Lebanon.

So a man should think of his wife. So Christ speaks of the church. How unworthy we are. So often we are not delightful. Our lives lack fragrance. We are not a source of joy. Our lips drop bitterness and poison and venom are under our tongues. How can Christ speak like this? He does so because all our sins are covered by his blood shed on the cross. He will make us perfect.

4. Consider how he thinks of her

12-15 You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride; you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices. You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon. He uses two images to describe here – a garden and a spring or fountain. He finds her a garden locked up and an enclosed or sealed spring or fountain. She is a virgin on her wedding night. The garden has been kept closed, the fountain sealed. It has not been allowed to flow.

The application to all unmarried people is clear. God has given you a lovely garden to look after. Keep it locked until the day of your marriage. The fountain is not to be unsealed until then. As believers we can think in similar terns of our spiritual chastity. We must keep ourselves pure until that day when Christ returns.

He goes on to describe the plants in the garden – all sorts of mellow fruits and aromatic spices. There is no need to try spiritualise these into the various gifts the Spirit gives. We know the various gifts he gives to us. These must all be preserve and kept for Christ’s enjoyment and use. They must not be perverted in any way.

In verses 6 and 7 he says Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of incense. All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you. Now is the time for love’s consummation. He pictures himself entering a garden at evening when its aroma is most intense. He comes in, he sees all her beauty.

That is how a wedding night should be. In to many instances young people have been so impatient that there is no such wedding night. They spoil both the anticipation and the consummation. If you are still unmarried do not make the mistake of forcing your way into the garden too soon. Wait! If such an exhortation is too late then we say turn from sin and find forgiveness and a fresh start in Christ.

But to look higher, see here a picture of the glories of heaven to come, love’s consummation there between Christ and his church. If we are those who truly trust in the Lord Jesus Christ then we will know as we are now known, then we will see him as he is and not only that but he will look on us and he will say All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you. Our beauty is often spotted now. There are many flaws. But not then! Look forward to that glorious day.

3. Consider the consummation of their love

1. Realise how to respond to praise

Well, how does one respond to praise like that? When it is genuine like that and when it is given at the appropriate time, as this wedding night was, then the way to respond is in the way that the bride does here. 16 Awake, north wind, and come, south wind! she says Blow on my garden, that its fragrance may spread abroad. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits. So taking up the image of the garden she uses two images to beautifully describe the consummation. Wind blowing on the garden and so diffusing its beautiful aroma everywhere and her beloved tasting the choicest fruits of her orchards. The latter image is a common one. People will speak sometimes of adultery as eating forbidden fruit. The other image is very fresh however. Perhaps we lose something of it by having so little experience of the aroma of an eastern garden. I remember a Kazakh Persian lady talking to me about it and saying how poor an English Garden is in contrast. Perhaps it is that we get so little warm breezes here. The image is particularly poignant for Christians when we remember how the Holy Spirit is so often spoken of as a wind (that is what spirit means) – an invisible person affecting us unseen. This is how Christ comes to us in this life. We cannot be fragrant Christians without that work. Of course, the ultimate fulfilment is in heaven in the glory to come. To this we look.

2. Consider love’s consummation

In 5:1 we have the words of the bridegroom again I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey; I have drunk my wine and my milk. He takes up the image of eating fruit especially and extends it. He enters that garden, locked until now but rightly and willingly opened now, and he picks the flowers as it were and eats and drinks what is there – honey and wine and milk. It is a very sensuous and evocative yet pure and chaste description. We always ought to try and think of such things in these sorts of terms.

He has in mind both the delights of the marriage bed and beyond that the consummation in heaven to come between Christ and his bride the church. What glories lie ahead. As believers pray to the winds to awake and to their lover to come into his garden so one day he will come.

3. Note the encouragement given by others

Finally, hear the words of the friends again Eat, O friends, and drink; drink your fil of love. There is no jealousy here and no interference only encouragement. That is how it should be for those of who look on and see others falling in love and entering on the delights of marriage. In eastern weddings there is a tradition of guests remaining around (elsewhere of course) until the consummation. Perhaps that is why we have this chorus. Although this is not done in the west the attitude is clearly to be commended. It reminds us too of the way the angels delight in everything to do with salvation. How they will rejoice with us when Christ returns at the consummation of all things.

Crisis and Ceremony: A lover lost and found, two lovers married

Text Song of Songs 3 Date23/02/20 Place Childs Hill Baptist

We are looking at Solomon’s Song of Songs on Sunday mornings. It is a poem about the love between King Solomon and the Shulamite, the Lover and his Beloved. There is some debate about this but we are seeking to learn from it by seeing how it relates to us both on the horizontal and vertical levels. We believe it has something to teach us about personal human relationships, especially marriage, but it is also a vivid picture of the relationship between God and his people, Christ and his church, which is very often pictured for us in Scripture in terms of a relationship between a man and his wife.

Most commentators are agreed in seeing a break between 3:5 and 3:6. What we read in 1:1 to 3:5 really deals with the courtship between the Beloved and her Lover, the woman and the man. Up until 3:5 it is all anticipation. From 3:6 we are dealing with the wedding day itself and beyond. The wedding day has an important place in the whole story. It's not the day when love began or necessarily the most important day of the marriage but it is a significant day, a day that is noted and a great fuss made. Many rebel against such ideas, especially in our day. Yet from every point of view marriage between a man and a woman makes sense. Simply slipping into a live-in relationship is not a good idea. It often doesn't work. Though the divorce rate is high in this country there are many, many more failures when people simply live together. There is also evidence to say that when a couple live together before getting married, divorce is more likely. Far better, far wiser to follow the biblical pattern and set a specific day when a public meeting takes place, when formally and pointedly the marriage between a man and a woman begins.

What I want us to do then this morning is to look at the whole of Chapter 3. It divides into two obvious parts, one before the wedding and one after. In verses 1-5 we consider a lover lost, then in verses 6-11 we begin to look at two lovers married. This time I want to put full emphasis on the vertical lessons here – our relationship with the Lord. Here we learn very useful things both about the experience of spiritual desertion and about the wedding procession that is the Christian life.

1. A lover lost – experiences to be aware of

There are three consecutive experiences that come out here.

1. Be aware of the distressing experience of a lover lost.

Because the verse begins All night long on my bed (or ‘night after night on my bed’) it is generally agreed that the sequence of verses beginning at 3:1 probably describes a dream or a series of recurring dreams. Our dream life is always a fascinating subject with a certain amount of mystery. For whatever reason, it would seem that whenever we go into a deep sleep, dreaming takes place. Sometimes we remember these dreams, sometimes not. Those who are lighter sleepers tend often to remember their dreams, while heavy sleepers do not. Sometimes we appear to have forgotten a dream when something will happen to trigger the memory and we recall part or all of the dream.

For lovers a great question is often ‘Did you dream about your loved one?’ The idea is that if you are thinking about your loved one every waking hour then it is no surprise that you think about them when you’re asleep too. There are even old wives tales about how you can guarantee that you'll dream about your loved one if you follow certain superstitious procedures. In reality, even the most ardent lovers sometimes find they never dream about their beloved ones or at least they can’t remember the dreams or (perhaps this has happened to you as seems to be the case here at first) they do dream about their beloved one but the dream is rather disturbing and unsatisfying. This can be especially so, as in the case here, where the wedding day is fast approaching and understandably there are nerves and fears. People can have what psychologists call fear-fulfilment dreams – not exactly nightmares but something close to it. Nothing seems to go right. The prospective Bride dreams she turns up in a tatty old dress, the groom dreams of arriving only to be told his bride has not, etc.

Throughout these verses the beloved speaks of the one my heart loves (1, 2 and 3). It is the same as the phrase she uses back in 1:7 translated there you whom I love. She loves to use this potent phrase – the one my heart loves. This raises the question for all of us – who do you love with your heart? Not only on the horizontal level but much more importantly on the vertical level. Does your heart love Jesus? Is your soul devoted to him? That is how it should be if we profess to be Christians. We should have an ardent desire for him. How that affects our dream life is not so important but how it effects our lives when we are awake is very important indeed.

What happens here is that although all night long the Shulamite looks for the one her heart loves she has to say I looked for him but did not find him. Firstly, we note the intensity of her love. She has to find him now. She can't go back to sleep, as it were, and resume her search in the morning. She has to find him immediately. Secondly, her search is fruitless. She longs to see him but she cannot. She searches for him but he is nowhere to be found.

It is probably only a dream but it brings out very vividly what it is to lose one whom you truly love.

On the horizontal level first - we think of broken engagements (never desirable) or worse, families torn apart by divorce or by death. We ought to have the fullest sympathy for anyone in such a position.

But then, on the vertical or spiritual plane, think of what it is like to go through a period of apparent spiritual desertion. Here is a truly converted believer. He reads the Word but it doesn’t seem to come home to him as it once did. He prays but he feels as though his prayers are going no higher than the ceiling. He’s not getting through. Such a person will usually still come to church but there seems to be a deadness on them. It is not like it once was. That sort of experience can come to a believer. It happens for various reasons. It is sometimes referred to as the dark night of the soul. It does not mean that such a person has lost his salvation or is no longer in union with Christ but there is a loss of communion. It produces thoughts such as these.

Where is the blessedness I knew when first I saw the Lord?

Where is the soul refreshing view of Jesus and his word?

What peaceful hours I once enjoyed! How sweet their memory still!

But now I feel an aching void, the world can never fill. William Cowper

It is similar to what the psalmist describes in Psalms 42-44 (see especially 42:9-11a and 44:23, 24 for a corporate experience of this). Do you know something of that distressing experience? It happens to believers just as it happened to this woman. Such a passage is here to show us what to do in such a situation.

2. Be aware of the testing experience of seeking for a lover lost.

Because of this situation the Beloved decides to do something. Throughout she is very practical, very earnest. She decides on a very careful, thorough and methodical search for him. (2) I will get up now and go about the city, through its streets and squares; I will search for the one my heart loves. She is determined. Cf Psalm 42:11.

The same sort of attitude ought to be there when it comes to the loss of a lover for any of us.

Firstly, on the horizontal level. Now obviously where a situation is beyond repair – eg when a partner dies - this verse can't be applied directly, although there is a lot to be said for remarriage in many cases and may be there is an application there. However, there are many other situations where things may be in the balance. You look like losing the one your heart loves. Well, do not sit back and leave it. Be up and doing what you can to win that person back. Where did things start to go wrong? Are there sins to repent of? Where can things be put right?

Vertically, the same can be said. When we feel deserted by Jesus it’s often because we first deserted him. We need to retrace our steps and consider where things began to go wrong. We need to be determined to meet with Christ and find communion with him afresh. It’s a matter for earnestness, thoroughness, great effort from us until the situation’s resolved. This is true individually and corporately. We must do all we can.

She goes on, however, So I looked for him but did not find him. Again we see the immediacy, the impulsiveness. Yet how frustrating, how distressing. She looks everywhere – the open squares, the back streets and sidestreets but he is nowhere to be found. She hunts high and low but he's not there.

We cannot suppose reconciliation is ever easy. There are no guarantees on the horizontal level.

We must not suppose that Christ is always easily found either. There can be times in a believer’s life when Christ seems very distant and far from us. True union with Christ can never be severed but there may be loss of communion.

She tells us in verse 3 that The watchmen found me as they made their rounds in the city. People are not supposed to be out on the streets at this time of night so the watchmen go to challenge her. Before they can say anything she blurts out her question Have you seen the one my heart loves?

Perhaps we can see how anyone who is in real earnestness to find communion with Christ again will inevitably speak to others about it, especially Christian ministers – those whose work is to keep watch over the City of God. It is perhaps not an easy thing to talk about but if we really love the Lord we will want to.

Something similar could be said on the horizontal level. Sometimes married and courting couples do need counselling. We shouldn’t be ashamed if that is thought necessary. By going to counsellors I don't mean Relate or other professionals necessarily but good Christians who can talk things through with a couple where that's necessary. It can be very helpful especially for a younger couple to talk with an older couple.

3. The happy experience of finding a lover lost.

Finally, in verse 4, we have the denouement as she reveals Scarcely had I passed them when I found the one my heart loves. At last she had discovered him. Here he is! I held him she says and would not let him go till I had brought him to my mother’s house, to the room of the one who conceived me. She is rewarded with the presence of her lover back in her childhood home. What distress losing her lover had caused her. Now, having found him again she is determined not to let him go. She hugs him. She holds on to him. She is determined that he should accompany her home.

Reconciliations do occur on the horizontal level. We should not automatically assume all is up when things go wrong. Pray for strong marriages in the church, locally and nationally. Pray against all that would undermine it. Do nothing to undermine anyone’s marriage – yours or those of others.

4. A warning conclusion. What heights and depths she had experienced. Even though it was only a dream she had been very involved emotionally – going down to the depths of sadness at her loss and rising to the heights of joy at finding her lover again. One modern writer says ‘Love not only brings a greater experience of joy but a deeper capacity for pain as well.’ This is probably why in verse 5 she repeats the warning previously found in 2:5 Daughters of Jerusalem, I charge you by the gazelles and by the does of the field: Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires. Love can be an emotional roller coaster. We need to be prepared for its contrasting highs and lows. That is why, although it often happens, it is not ideal for a young teenager to be pre-occupied with such matters. They are already facing many emotional changes and tests without introducing a further element. If a child can possibly get through those early teen years without awakening or arousing love then that is all to the good. Sadly, many are determined that will not be the case and especially on the Internet and TV are constantly pumping out propaganda to say that if you are not busy falling in love you are not really living the life of a teenager. We can do without such nonsense. A level of emotional maturity is very desirable before we start thinking seriously about love and marriage. That means to say that we will take care both with our own emotions and those of any we consider approaching on this level.

It is good for those who are young Christians or not yet converted to know that there are ups and downs in the Christian walk. It is never perfectly smooth walk to heaven. There are difficulties. We must expect these.

2. Two lovers married - a wedding procession to consider

In 3:6-11 we have a description of the wedding procession into Jerusalem which is followed (in Chapter 4) by festivities at the Royal Palace. Here we need to think of a royal procession rather than a traditional English wedding. It was common in that time and place for brides and grooms together or apart to proceed to the wedding place with great pomp and circumstance. This is unusual anyway. Whereas most often at weddings all eyes are on the bride, here it is quite different. All eyes are on the groom.

1. Consider a wedding procession out of the desert and on to glory.

In 3:6-11 either the woman or a crowd of onlookers speak and describe Solomon and his cortège travelling along the road from the desert (ie open uncultivated country) into Jerusalem. From the walls of the city perhaps we look up and what do we see? 6 Who is this coming up from the desert like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and incense made from all the spices of the merchant? It is not clear at first but it becomes clear that this is the Bride and Groom. A great pillar of smoke is arising at the head of the procession. All sorts of beautiful smelling incense and spices are burning in the air. This was done in processions but this is unique. The pillar of smoke reminds us of the presence of God with his people in the desert. The various perfumes speak of God's glory too. Here we see a picture of Christ bringing his church out of the desert of this world into the glory of heaven and the marriage supper of the Lamb to come. That is how we ought to think of our lives here as Christians, going on from glory to glory in a wedding procession.

2. Consider a wedding procession that focuses on the groom.

Soon it becomes obvious where the focus is. Perhaps it is the Beloved who speaks now. 7, 8 Look! It is Solomon’s carriage, escorted by 60 warriors, the noblest of Israel, all of them wearing the sword, all experienced in battle, each with his sword at his side, prepared for the terrors of the night. It is Solomon the King! He is surrounded by his choicest band of warrior soldiers, 60 in all. They wear their swords in a ceremonial way today but they are experienced fighters and no-one dare attack. This is not an empty display of nobility and prowess. These men are well able to protect the King and his bride from every danger, whether it comes by day or by night. They remind us of the angels that we know are at Christ’s command ready to do his will at any time. This reminds us that God’s people are safe as they travel to the Marriage Supper.

As the procession comes nearer, more can be seen and more details are given. In verses 9, 10 we learn more about the carriage, the litter or palanquin. King Solomon made for himself the carriage; he made it of wood from Lebanon. Its posts he made of silver, its base of gold. Its seat was upholstered with purple, its interior lovingly inlaid by the daughters of Jerusalem. It is made of the best wood – cedar wood from Lebanon. It has silver posts and a gold base. Inside its seat has been lovingly upholstered in purple with careful inlaid work all around – the work of the daughters of Jerusalem. Here is something more of the glory of the Christian life. In splendour and in comfort God provides for his people. He carries them all the way. They respond in love and lovingly adore him as the daughters of Jerusalem.

3. Consider a wedding procession that culminates in a day of crowning and joy. Finally, the procession arrives in Jerusalem and the shout goes up Come out, and look, you daughters of Zion. Look on King Solomon wearing a crown, the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, the day his heart rejoiced. The Bride is not mentioned. Her description comes later. There are horizontal applications here, of course – male headship is clear. The joy of Christian marriage is also evident. However, let’s concentrate on Christ to close. All eyes are on the king here. He wears the royal crown. There was nothing to compare with it. It is fascinating that it is the King’s mother who puts the crown on his head. In Solomon’s life it was Bathsheba who would have done that. What does the term mother point to when we think of Christ? Not Mary but all those who do his will – the church, his people. The crowning day that’s coming by and by is the day when we will crown him as believers. What a day of unmitigated joy it will be. We ought to think often of it. Meanwhile we ought to be looking forward to that day and seeking to give all glory to him. In regard to splendour and to comfort, God amply provides for us. He carries us all the way. The appropriate response is love and adoration.

We who together form Christ’s Bride must obey him now, knowing we will give him all glory in the world to come. ‘The crowning day is coming by and by’ when believers will ‘crown him with many crowns, the Lamb upon his throne’. What a day of unalloyed delight that will be. We ought to meditate often on it.