If you'll exchange your hymnal for your Bible, you can turn to Song of Solomon, Chapter 8. Song of Solomon, Chapter 8, found on page 718 in your pew Bibles. As Pastor Schrock mentioned, this will be the concluding message from this book. You might note in your bulletin the title, Under the Apple Tree. Hopefully we'll do better there than Jonah did this morning under the kikyon plant, eh? Hopefully no worms in our apples. But in all seriousness, Song of Solomon chapter 8 on page 718 is God's word to us this evening, this concluding song of this book of songs. So if you're there, follow along now from God's holy word, Song of Solomon, the eighth chapter, beginning in verse 1. This is the wife speaking. Oh, that you were like a brother to me, who nursed at my mother's breasts. If I found you outside, I would kiss you, and none would despise me. I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, she who used to teach me. I would give you spiced wine to drink, the juice of my pomegranate. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand embraces me. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Who is that coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved? Under the apple tree, I awakened you. There, your mother was in labor with you. There, she who bore you was in labor. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is strong as death. Jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised. The Course says, we have a little sister and she has no breasts. We shall do for our little sister on that day when she is spoken for. If she is a wall, we will build on her a battlement of silver. But if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar. I was a wall and my breasts were like towers. Then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. He let out the vineyard to keepers. Each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, my very own, is before me. You, O Solomon, may have the thousand and the keepers of the fruit, 200. The husband says, O you who dwell in the gardens with companions listening for your voice, let me hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountain of spices. This is God's holy word. Let us pray and give him thanks for it. Lord God, indeed, we are grateful. We are thankful for your word. We are, in fact, delighted that you have chosen to speak to us, that you are not unknowable, that you have revealed yourself and all of your character to your people. that we may know you, that we may love you, that we may respond in faith and obedience to your word. This, we ask, would be accomplished through Christ as he applies it to us by his spirit. And so we ask in his name, amen. I recently finished a book about the search for the source of the Nile River. This book by popular historian Candace Millard traces how it took thousands of years for mankind to actually find the source of the Nile River in Africa. For thousands of years, people literally did not know its source, did not know where that life-giving stream of one of the most profound of all ancient civilizations, that of Egypt, could be found. Now, you may think, well, couldn't you just get on a boat and go until you can't go any further? And there you'd be at the head of the river But it's actually not that simple. You see, for one, it's a 4,000-mile river, a bit long, perhaps, for an afternoon canoe ride. But more importantly, it's littered with cataracts. And you can imagine, it's hard enough to go down a cataract in a boat, but to go up a cataract is impossible. You might think, well, just go around the cataract. But in those places, the terrain is rocky, and there's deep caverns, and it's desert terrain. It's harder than you think. In fact, it wasn't until 2006, in this very century, that someone first took that 4,000-mile boat trip from the shores of the Mediterranean all the way to the source of the Nile. Now, because it was so difficult, Millard's book traces how explorers came up with Plan B. What they would do is they would go to the Indian Ocean. They would sort of guess where they thought the river might be, and so start heading inland from the Indian coast. They say, all right, go overland, find the source. Should be easy, right? Build your caravan, pack your animals, go find the source of this mighty river. However, the obstacles continue to mount. First you had the bugs. Besides the normal disease that you get from bugs, one of the two main explorers actually went deaf in one ear. He woke up one morning and there was a beetle in his ear. Seeking to extract it, he went deaf. Two, you had the rains. It was dry land, but that means that when it did rain, it turned to mud, because everything was dust and dirt. And those canyons would now become funnels of strong, powerful water, torrents of water, like geysers almost. Of course, you had the terrain itself, hot, cold, mountainous jungles. You had hostile natives. You had disease. But despite all those things, eventually our two heroes found the lake, the source of the river. They made a trip around the river to find where the river flowed out and they were able to locate the source of the river. They realized it was the wrong river. They had gone to Lake Tanganyika, which is a little too far south in Africa to be the source of the Nile. were greatly disappointed. Nile doesn't flow from that lake. They're out of goods. They actually had to go back to the coast. They failed in that quest. It wasn't until much later that someone realized, aha, we should have gone a little further north to what is now known as Lake Victoria because it was in the Victorian era that those explorations were taking place. And you may wonder, what does this have to do with Song of Solomon 8? Well, as I was reading this book alongside the song, I was thinking about how many of us often have just as much difficulty locating what people like to call true love, or perhaps we could call it biblical love. We have as much difficulty locating that as these explorers had locating the source of the Nile. Perhaps you are single and you wonder, Lord, when in my life will I discover the one person that you have for me? And how will we build a relationship that lasts? Where will we find the source of that true love? Or perhaps you're even married or you're in a relationship with someone, but even then you wonder. Is this love that we have real? Will it last? What is its foundation? What is its roots? What is its source? Perhaps you've lost that love. Perhaps your spouse passed away, died, went to be with the Lord. And you wonder, will I ever experience that love again? And frankly, some of us have just found the wrong lake. Searching for love as culture suggests we should do, but in fact not locating that which scripture holds out for us is the ideal between one man and one woman forever. The obstacles, life itself gets in the way. But when we come to the Song of Solomon, we can find great encouragement, can we not, from these descriptions that the book gives us? But often, in our own experience, do not the encouragements become discouragements if we think, I'm not sure this describes my experience. I can't see myself in this plot. I can't see myself singing this song. But as we conclude the Song of Solomon, And really, as we consider all that we've seen from this book, it seems as if the author is telling us how we can and how we cannot find true love, such love, the love that he describes in this book in such glowing terms. And as he does so, he does so by giving us three main things to consider. First, he makes clear to us that true love cannot be premature. It cannot be found prematurely. Second, he tells us that it cannot be bought at a price. It cannot be bought at a price. The third, he tells us that it can and must be found rooted in promise, in commitment, in sacrificial love, one for the other. It cannot be found prematurely. It cannot be purchased. But it can be found rooted in promise and in covenant commitment, one to the other. Let's begin with this first thing, that true love cannot be premature. Maybe the first thing we notice in this chapter is this wish that may sound at first odd to us. Oh, that you are like a brother to me, the verse begins, who nursed at my mother's breasts. We know why this seems odd. We usually don't think, man, I really wish my husband was my brother. But note, she doesn't say, I wish him to be my brother. She says, I wish for him to be like my brother. And why? Well. Keep reading, the second half of verse one tells us, if I found you outside, I would kiss you and none would despise me. You see, in the day and age in which this book was written, it was considered culturally a taboo to kiss your beloved in public. It doesn't mean it was sinful, it doesn't mean it was wrong, but it was culturally just not a thing that you would do. But a brother, sure. Nothing wrong culturally with kissing your brother in public. So that's what she means. She says, I want to make known and I want to kiss you in public. It's not an inappropriate desire at all. It may not be what the culture of that day suggested, but it was not inappropriate. She's not trying to be lurid. She's not trying to be explicit. She does want to be Intimate, but for that she wants to take it inside, as it were. Verse 2, I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, she who used to teach me. It's interesting that you may have noticed that both of their mothers get mentioned in these early verses. Hers in verse 1, like a brother that nursed at my mother's breast. Verse 2, as we just saw, into the house of my mother. His appears in verse 5. Under the apple tree I awakened you, there your mother was in labor with you. Perhaps you wonder this as well. It may seem odd to us to wish that your husband was like your brother. It may also seem weird that you wanted to take her to your mother's house, but this isn't so you could meet the family. This isn't bringing your boyfriend or fiance home for Thanksgiving for the first time. This is a married couple. So why does she stress that that is the site of their canubial activity in verse two? Well, why in response to this question in verse five that that's probably from the chorus, who is that coming up from the wilderness, leading her beloved? Why does she mention the family apple tree? Why does she reminisce on how before bringing him to her home, she found him under the ancestral tree, if you will? One commentator puts it this way, this highlights a flow of family history. There was love and arousal and sexual relations and conception and babies before them, and now this couple gladly takes its place. It carves their names into the family tree, looks forward to adding their children's names. He goes on, they do not stand outside their family genealogies. Their publicly inaugurated and covenant community celebrated love is bigger that they're personal and private love for each other. I might add that these pictures of youth and innocency seem to stress the rightness, yes, the innocency, the rootedness of their love. This is nothing new. They're not seeking to be ultra or, you know, against the love that has been the part of the covenant people of God ever since Adam and Eve were planted in the garden. Because at its root, marital true love is a family affair linking the generations. Perhaps our culture gets away from this at its peril. To make love all about what we want, regardless of our family, regardless of where we come from, regardless of the faith of our parents. But Solomon in this chapter ties love to the greater family, which it springs. We'll speak more about this in a minute, but as it does throughout the book, the song you may know is careful to place a fence around this. Verse four, we heard again, yet again, that the daughters of Jerusalem putting the woman under, or being put under oath, excuse me, not to stir up love too early. Verse 4, I adjure you, O daughter of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. This doesn't mean until it feels right. Until it pleases means that until it is at its proper time. It's appointed and right time. Earlier in the book of The Song of Solomon, we saw that one reason that this is important, that we do not engage in such physical activity before marriage, is that it made a mockery of Christ and his covenant love for his people. But there are more reasons added here, are there not? This chapter's context helped us understand why love and sexual relations is placed specifically in the realm of the family. and marriage. We see that marriage is public. We see it's intergenerational in both directions. The approval of the parents are implicit here. The procreation of children is the intended result. It's community celebrated. It's in its proper place in the grander scheme of the Lord's working through families as he has done throughout the redemption history. If you think about illicit sex, it's none of those things, is it? It's shameful. It's done in secret. It's, at least in a Christian setting, it does not have the approval of one's parents. It produces illegitimate children. It tears at the fabric of society instead of building up society and community. It takes what is good and proper, and right, and makes it tawdry, makes it dirty, taking a beautiful gift of the Lord and throwing it into the mud puddle, as it were. Well, this is you today. If you are not yet married, you know the warning. You can apply it directly to your own situation. Take heed of the warning, but as you do so, Please take note of what is in store. Take hope in what the Lord places before you as you look forward, Lord willing, one day to marriage. The sanctity of it is described beautifully for us in this text. For instance, it's illustrated in verses eight and nine. When the chorus reappears, they remark, we have a little sister. She has no breasts. We shall do for our sister. What shall we do, excuse me, for our sister on the day when she is spoken for? Notice the community wants the glories of matrimony protected for the sake of this young one. They want her to enjoy physical relations but within the place of marriage so that it is a good for her and not a harm, a damaging situation for her. She's clearly immature, she has no breasts, and yet it seems that there will be a day coming when she is spoken for, that someone is interested in marrying her. And so they can go one of two ways in verse 9, can't they? They say she's either a wall or a door. This is figurative language. Perhaps a wall refers to virginity, being guarded and protected from men, so they bless her. But if she's a door, they say, this is perhaps someone who has lost her virginity or just perhaps been overly flirtatious. They will protect her. They will enclose her with boards of cedar. They recognize her status, but they don't shame her. They don't say, you're not worthy to be married. They say, we will protect you and preserve you that you may enjoy. that which the Lord has appointed for you in its proper place in time. Whether you are a wall or a door, to use their language, they will do all they can to honor and to protect, to lift up the sweet sister of theirs, that she may enjoy marriage and sexual behavior appropriately, but rightly, regardless of her status, regardless of her past. And then in verse 10, the woman adds, this is exactly right. By my own experience, I was a wall. And in his eyes, I was one who finds peace. She says, yes, this is my experience, and I want others to have it too. I want them to enjoy properly within marriage. That which in any other setting is inappropriate. But in marriage is, oh, so sweet. Don't you love this word picture? She's one who finds peace. Or as your footnote might tell you, one who brings peace. She's a peace bringer. In her marriage, she brought, in the Hebrew, shalom. She brought wholeness and completeness and rightness and fittingness according to creation and God's design for the world to her marriage. This is perhaps a play on words. Solomon is the author of this book. His name is Shlomo in Hebrew. The contrast is between the shalom she brings and the life of Shlomo, our author. And this introduction of Solomon in the very next word of verse 11 brings us to our second point this evening. That if this sort of love for which we long cannot be premature, neither can it be bought at any price. Neither can it be bought at any price. Introduction of Solomon might be surprising. In chapter 3, though, verse 6, we saw that he was the one coming up from the wilderness in all his splendor and all his pomp. A negative example, it seemed to be, of one whose priorities were in the wrong place. Now this couple is coming up from the wilderness in chapter 8, verse 5. And Solomon, again, contrasts with them, does he not? We read that Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Haman. He led out the vineyard to keepers. Each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. We know elsewhere from scripture that Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. And we know that these were transactional relationships. The wives were for political transactions. He made alliances with all the kingdoms in his area. Remember, in that day and age, a kingdom was often only a city. So there were many, myriad of kingdoms around, and he made alliances with 700 kingdoms and married 700 princesses and brought them into his royal household. But it was for transactional reasons. It was so he would have peace. And so his kingdom would expand. And we can imagine the 300 concubines for a physical transaction, if you will, for his physical pleasure. These 1,000 wives and concubines had nothing to do with the sort of love extolled in this book. That's why if it was written by Solomon, we often think perhaps it was by an older and chastened and perhaps even regretful Solomon, making sure that we don't make the same mistake as he. So in contrast to this harem that he has, which is described as a vineyard here, he has to pay people to take care of it, to rent it out. Perhaps the 1,000 pieces of silver in verse 11 is a clue, a hint of the 1,000 wives and concubines that he has. In contrast to that sort of love, the woman replies, my vineyard, my very own, is before me. She says, I don't need two or three or four, or let alone 1,000. She says, you may have your 1,000. Keep them. She says. She echoes here what she said earlier in verse 7. The second half of that verse, she said, if a man offered for love all the wealth of his house. He would be utterly despised. She says it's. Absurd to try to to try to purchase love with wealth. With money? It's absurd. I liken it to trying to buy a new car with all the chains from your couch. But you can dig a new couch cushion all you want and you're not going to find enough money to buy a new car. It's impossible to purchase love with any amount of money that your household could have. The cost is too high. The value is too rich. It's absurd. But it's ridiculous as well. It's ridiculous in the eyes of others. You can imagine the people, you know, looking at Solomon. What's he think that 1,000th woman is going to provide that the first 999 did not? She says such a person would be utterly despised. It's absurd. It's ridiculous. It's hurtful to the woman. Who do you think I am? Or perhaps it's shameful. If she relented and allowed herself to be bought, she would feel shame. woman says such a person would be utterly despised, perhaps we could say despised and despicable. And perhaps you're thinking, oh no one is trying to do this today, we don't have harems anymore, we don't buy and sell other humans. But I don't think you can make the case that transactional relationships are a thing of the past. Whether it's trying to fill emptiness with a one-night fling, or marrying an older or wealthier person simply for money. Remember what Jackie Kennedy said, you marry the first time for love and the second time for money. She was not living 3,000 years ago. Perhaps we say, you know, I give you children, you give me a roof over my head. Or sometimes it's just as simple as being willing to give yourself physically to someone who merely makes, you know, vague promises of the future. Says, yeah, I'll always love you, always be here for you, but there's no commitment. There's no marriage. There's no ring. There's no combining of two hearts. It's just a transaction for that person. That's why it's hurtful, shameful, and ridiculous. But perhaps the main reason that such love cannot be bought is because that's not how we received love in the first place. We've seen all throughout this book that the source of the love that we have for one another is the love that God has poured out into our hearts, just as he poured out into his son for all eternity. What does the Apostle Peter say in his first epistle? He says, you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold. but with the precious blood of Christ." Peter says, when Christ made you his, he didn't buy you with silver or gold. Peter has his tongue in his cheek when he says these are perishable things. The most imperishable things that man could come up with, you know, the fine silver and gold that would last He says, compared to Christ's love for you, compared to Christ's blood that he shed for you, those things are perishable. Those things are fading away. Brothers and sisters, Christ did not buy you in some sort of transaction. He gave himself for you. That's why this sort of love cannot be bought. It can only be given in utter and absolute commitment one to the other. That's why when the Apostle Paul says, husbands, you want to know what this sort of love looks like. Look to that place of shedding blood. Look to the cross. Look to Christ's sacrifice for you. That sort of love cannot be paid with another car, a bigger house. Even as wonderful as financial security can be, it cannot purchase such love. Such love is only found in the giving of one to another for all eternity. That love being Christ's love for you. And it's only when we understand that, it's only when we accept that the Lord of the universe was willing to go to the place of execution for my sin, to redeem me, to buy me back from slavery with his own self. with his own blood, with his own suffering and death and descent into the realm of the dead for a wretch like me. Now I can understand how I can love someone who is less a wretch than I perhaps, who is my better half by giving of myself. The writer says, all the wealth of his house would be utterly despised, because that's no substitute for the sort of love that Christ gave to us when he gave us of himself. I was speaking earlier of the ways in which we give love wrongly, whether we give it prematurely or we give it just so what we can get out of it, or merely for our own pleasure. And I hope if you have done that, I hope you're hearing that Christ is the only solution. That it's not eternal shame. It's not a feeling like you'll never experience the sort of love that we have here. It's the forgiveness of Christ offered at the cross that is the answer. That as he gave himself for you, you are his forever. and nothing will ever break that commitment he has to you. You see, friends, but by sealing his commitment, his covenant to you with his blood, he made you his forever. That's why our third point this evening is that such love, although it cannot be premature and it cannot be bought, it can be found rooted in promise. in commitment, in one to the other. Perhaps the most famous verse of the entire book expresses this truth. You look at chapter 8, verse 6, set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. likely know what a seal is, an official promise, a guarantor, a seal of promise, of covenant, of assurance that that which is said will be true, of that which is promised will come to pass. But you notice she doesn't say, I will give you a seal, or I will find a seal. She says, set me as your seal. I am the commitment to you. I am the promise to you. My very heart, my very soul, my very being linked linked forever in covenant to you. She says that is love that lasts. Not rooted in one's mood or financial situation or job prospects or whoever happens to come along most recently. No, it's it's rooted in commitment. That if the Trinity in Eternity was committed one to the other. If Christ from all eternity was committed to you, his people, if God chose us in him before the foundation of the world, if that sort of commitment level is given to us freely through Christ, now we can love our spouse as that seal that we are forever in covenant. Third and fourth lines of verse six may be surprising to you. Love is strong as death, jealousy fierce as the grave. We don't often compare love to death or to the grave, but the point seems to be that just as death always gets its man, that you can't escape death. That death is, along with taxes, one of the most certain things in life She says, my love is that sure unless Christ returns, we will die. You know it. But she says, you can have that same sort of absolute knowledge that my love is yours. Because it's the love that my father gave to me. The end of verse six is the only time in this entire book that the Lord's name appears. She says its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. The reason she can say that my love is as sure as death is because it's the love that is a gift of God. He is the giver of the flame, the flashes of fire. She says many waters cannot quench love. Neither can floods drown it. Normally water douses fire, does it not? But not here. She says nothing can extinguish this sort of covenant commitment, love. verse 6 describes it as jealousy or ardor, as the footnote says. We often only think of the sinful type of jealousy, perhaps related to covetousness. of idolatry. But there is a holy and righteous jealousy that that matches the Lord's own. Scripture tells us that the Lord is jealous for his own glory. He is jealous for his own people. The word means he's not willing to share with others that which is rightly his. And in this case, jealousy is good in a marriage because a part of commitment is an unwillingness to share with anyone else that which is rightly yours. Jealousy is as fierce as the grave. We only understand that sort of jealousy, not wanting to share, have anyone else infringe upon our spouse when we are willing to give ourself fully to that person. To match the desire for jealousy with the desire for commitment. Because once again, It's merely a reflection of our Heavenly Father's jealous love for us. He will not share us with another. Yes, we may face the grave, but even that will not keep us from our Father's firm and strong hand. We are His forever. And so again, I keep saying it, but it's only when we really swim in those waters, when we really bathe our hearts in those truths, that we can understand the sort of love that scripture desires for us to have on this level. And it is in that love that our book finally ends. Verses 13 and 14, this idyllic and edenic scene in a garden. Oh, you who dwell in the gardens with companions listening for your voice, let me hear it. She calls him to her in verse 14. And it's like the curtain closes, the screen fades to black as the man and the woman enjoy their intimacy together, as a picture of the love that they have received from the Lord. There's no better way for us to conclude this series than that same reflection, the love that God has poured out in our hearts to Christ. We have the opportunity to pour that out in marriage. But don't forget, it doesn't stop there. Perhaps you're not married and you wonder, does this really apply to me? But if Christ has wed himself to the person next to you, and has wed himself to the person across the aisle from you, it has wed himself to you as well, that in some way you are in that committed covenant relationship with every brother and sister in Christ. You are collectively the bride of the great king. You may love your brothers and sisters in Christ wholeheartedly with a love that Christ has shown you, your family, those whom the Lord has placed in your life to be loved by you and for them to love you. That Christ may be exalted, that Christ may be high and lifted up, that the world have no doubt that the body of Christ is present and active here. for the love that you have one for another, the love that God has first poured out upon you. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you again for your word. I thank you that you have shown for us in doctrine, in narrative, in song, in poetry, all the ways in which you've striven to reveal Yourself to us, made effective by Your Son and His Spirit, that we may truly, if not completely, know You. Lord, we long for all eternity when we will be ever enraptured by Your presence as we gaze upon the beauty of Christ, our eternal Bridegroom. We pray this in His name. Amen.