Well, as we come to the ministry of the word this morning, I invite you to take your Bibles and turn in them to Song of Solomon, chapter two. Song of Solomon, chapter two. I'm gonna be reading in your hearing this morning, once again, for the third week, verses eight through 17. Song of Solomon, chapter two, verses eight through 17. Let's give our attention to the reading of God's word. The voice of my beloved, behold, he comes, leaping over mountains, bounding over the hills. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me, arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away. For behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtle dove is heard in our land. The fig tree ripens its figs, and the vines are in blossom. They give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away. Oh, my dove in the clefts of the rock and the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face. Let me hear your voice. for your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. Catch the foxes for us, the little foxes that spoil the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom. My beloved is mine and I am his. He grazes among the lilies until the day breathes and the shadows flee. Turn, my beloved, be like a gazelle or a young stag on cleft mountains. Let's further redeem God's word. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of our Lord stands forever, and we are grateful for it. Would you bow with me this morning? Let's ask the Lord for help as we come to the ministry of his holy and inerrant and infallible word. Father God, what a sweet time it has been this morning with your saints. Father, these are otherworldly activities that we are engaging in. Your spirit has been sent from heaven and yet, Father, we pray that your spirit would dwell among us during this time at the corporate level, that our hearts would be close to where your spirit is working. And we know, Father, that your spirit relishes to work in tandem with your word. So Father, may that word come to us this morning. And Father, as we consider this love poetry, Yes, Father, we want to understand it and apply it at the level of our marriages where it applies. But Father, more importantly this morning, all of us, whether we are married or not, are in, if we profess the name of Jesus Christ, are in a love relationship with our Savior, Jesus Christ. And Father, I pray that you would stoke the affections of that relationship in a greater way this morning. Lord, we are good in this place about loving you with our mind. We are good in this place about storing up knowledge and facts and datum, as it were. But Father, we pray that though we know these things, we would be blessed if we would do them, Father, that we would set our hand to the plow and love you with our minds, love you with our hearts, and that Father, we would behold this morning The work of Jesus Christ and how very splendid it is. How majestic he is, how he levels mountains, how he slaughters foxes, and how he destroys divisions for his people. Show us that Christ this morning through your word we pray. In Christ's name, amen. Well, if you're visiting this morning, we have been working through a series on Song of Solomon. Song of Solomon, admittedly, is a very difficult book. And I've been drawn to it recently because in line with how much of the church has understood it in the history of interpretation, it does speak, as I said, about the love that Christ has for the church and the love that the church has for Christ. And I want to remind you hermeneutically of those two different horizons that we're thinking about this book on. The first one is that literal horizon where we think about the love of a husband for a wife and a wife for a husband and the love relationship of the marriage. We want to apply what we've read today, at least verses 9 and 10, to that relationship. And if you are not in a marriage relationship, but you are in a courtship or an engagement or whatever, there is much here for you to learn from. But not only do we read it on the literal horizon, but we also read it on the allegorical horizon, where this love relationship between a man and a woman in the context of marriage was intended by God from the beginning to be a picture of the relationship between God and His people. You might say God in Israel in the Old Covenant, but now in the wake of the Christ event, it is the love that Christ has for his church. In Ephesians 5, verses 22-33, Paul puts that on display. He talks about the high and holy mystery that it is that the relationship between a husband and a wife displays the gospel, the good news that Christ came down to lay his life down for his people. And so we want to mine out application of this great mystery on both those levels this morning. So that's the first thing I wanna say by way of introduction. The second thing I wanna say by way of introduction is this. I want us to think about divisions, divisions in the marriage, and we'll get to the text in a moment where we draw this out. Divisions in the marriage that blunt the power and presence of love in the marriage. I want you to think about divisions in the marriage that blunt the power and presence of love in the marriage. Love, listen to me, love is a remarkable thing. It is a remarkable thing. There is a reason why poets love to write poetry about love. It is a powerful thing. Love, we can say, is an emotion, but it is much more than an emotion. Love, we can say, is an action, but it is much more than an action. Love, we can say, is a state of mind which propels all the faculties into a heightened awareness of its object, such that its object is adored, that its object is appreciated, and that its object is admired. But love is much more than a state of mind. We could say that love is a decision, or you might say a commitment, that one makes for better or for worse. This is the stuff of marriage vows, is it not? Love is a decision that we make for better or for worse, for the object loved is not loved for its parts, but for the whole. But it is more than a decision. In all of these things and more, love is a splendid thing. And I don't want you to turn there, but I just want you to listen for a moment what the author of the Song of Solomon says in chapter eight, verse six. Listen, this is poetry at its finest in this book. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death. Jealousy is fierce as the grave, its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. That's beautiful poetry. And I think that even if we were assigned in an English class the task of describing what that means, we may not be able to cobble the words together But I think deep in our souls we feel the reality of it, do we not? Do we not feel the reality that love is as strong as death? Do we not feel the fierceness of jealousy when the object of our love strays away from us? Do we not feel the fierceness of jealousy when something outside of that relationship threatens to take the object of our love? Our dear one, our beloved, as the poet says. Jealousy is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, oftentimes in the Old Testament, how is God described? He is described as a jealous God. In fact, there was a place, I believe it's somewhere in Exodus, that says that God's name is jealous. Isn't that interesting? But my question is this this morning as we think about that beautiful poetic picture that Solomon gives us in 8-6. Why do we often fail to experience the reality of this description of love in our marriages? Why do we often fail to experience the reality of this beautiful picture of love being as strong as death, jealousy as fierce as the very flames of the Lord? Why do we often fail to experience in our marriage? The reason why we fail to experience the reality of these poetic words of love in our marriage is because of divisions, of divisions which often get erected in the life of the marriage. And with that, I want you to look specifically at Song of Solomon 2 verse 9. I'll be there in just a moment. We fail to experience this love as strong as death, this love and fierceness of jealousy in our marriage because divisions are often erected in the marriage, whether it is the man doing it, whether it is the woman doing it, but oftentimes they are not addressed. Listen to me. These divisions stay erected. These divisions go unaddressed. These divisions, listen to me, they get swept under the rug. They become part and parcel of, par for the course. We oftentimes will say when we're dealing with conflict, whether it's in the context of marriage or in some other relationship, well, that's normal. It's normal that you have these divisions. It's normal that the husband would react this way, that the woman would react this way. And I think sometimes we trick ourselves, like what are we saying when we say that? Are we saying it's normal, therefore it's justified? Right? I think sometimes that, you see, our flesh is so wicked and so deceitful, right? I think that sometimes that's what our flesh is itching for. If I could justify and rationalize the divisions that either I erect or I contribute to, then I don't have to have a guilty conscience about the presence of those divisions in the marriage. But we need to address these divisions, and I think that Song of Solomon gives us a blueprint for how to do it. But the love described here, in Song of Solomon 2, 9 and 10, listen to me, is a division-leveling love. It is a division leveling love. It is a love that is hyper aware, listen, of even the faintest whiff of division and seeks to stamp it out at all costs. seeks to stamp it out at all costs. This division leveling love is a love that is jealous of any competitors of idolatry that would stand in the way of fresh invigorating love, whether those idols are found in the husband or the wife's heart. This is the division-leveling love that Solomon puts on display for us this morning. So let's consider this division-leveling love in two movements here. First, on the first horizon, let's consider this division-leveling love at the level of the relationship of the husband and wife. Look at 2-9. 2-9 says this. My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag. Behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, looking through the lattice. My beloved speaks and says to me, arise, my love, my beautiful one, and come away. I want you to notice here that of the three things in verse nine that are mentioned, listen, you need to picture this or else you're going to miss the metaphor. The wife is on one side of these divisions and the husband is on the other. There are three things that are mentioned, a wall, windows, and a lattice. What's interesting is that of these three, only one of them uses the first person personal pronoun, our. Our wall, it says in verse nine. There, he stands behind our wall. And what do walls speak of but of divisions? I want you to think metaphorically here of something that stands between the wife and the husband. There is a division there. He stands behind the wall. Something stands between the two of us. And how do we deal with these divisions in the marriage? Well, two things. Two things I want you to consider at the level of husband and wife. Here's the first one. Listen to me very carefully. I want to address the husbands this morning. The husband is the one who, as head, as leader, as priest of his home, initiates the task of leveling divisions. It is the husband who should initiate the task of leveling divisions. Notice that he stands at the wall. Notice that, listen, he comes to the wall. He makes that first movement to come. He does not stand back and expect the wife to come to the wall and start chiseling through it as it were, but the man, he comes to the wall. This is the voice of her beloved and he comes. Danger rears its ugly head, and what does the man that is a man of steel and velvet do? He runs toward the fray. He runs to the action. He runs to the problems. He is not a slob. He is not slothful. He is not a coward. But he runs toward the action in order to overcome it. He stands at the wall and he comes. I want you to notice sometimes we talk about in relationships, in conflict, you know, we come to loggerheads, right? We come to loggerheads and maybe both sides are angry. And we have this phrase in American culture, we'll often ask the rhetorical question, well, who's gonna be the bigger man? Who's gonna be the bigger man? Who's gonna let cooler heads prevail, not be driven by emotion and passions because that almost never goes well? Who's going to be the bigger man? Well, I submit to you this morning that in the context of the marriage, the question is not who will be the bigger man in the context of division, the question is who will be the man? Who will be the man? Who will be the man who will come toward the wall, toward the division, and actually initiate reconciliation? That is a very hard thing to do, isn't it? I know that oftentimes in my marriage, when my wife and I have been in bed and we've been talking and there's been conflict and it doesn't go well, and then we literally turn our backs to each other, none of us can sleep. We know we're not gonna be able to sleep. And there's like this silence that's deafening, right? We know we're angry at each other, both thinks it's the other's fault. And I think as a man, what I'm thinking is, well, you know what? She needs to repent. And as the woman, she's thinking, he needs to repent. And when you're at loggerheads, who's going to break the ice? The question again is not who will be the bigger man, the question is who will be the man. The answer, men, is we are to be the ones who initiate reconciliation. That does not mean, listen to me, that does not mean that the man in every case is always coming and saying, you know what, honey, it was my fault. Maybe it's not his fault. Maybe it's her fault. Maybe she's being absolutely ridiculous. The question is not conceding or showing deference, the question is, who is going to lead the charge in seeking reconciliation? Now, if you think that I'm off here, and if you think, why should it be the husband who does that? Why should the husband be the one who's overcoming divisions in the marriage? Let me give you six reasons why, okay? Let me give you six reasons why. Here's the first one that's just theologically pervasive throughout the Bible, and the first one is that you're the head. You're the head, okay? I go on to the second one. I want you to look in verse 15, just of Song of Solomon chapter two. Notice that when the wife says, catch the foxes, who is she addressing? She's addressing the husband, okay? Again, it's not the wife who is to initiate the fox shooting spree as it were, it is the husband. The foxes, the beloved says, are ruining the vineyard, they're spoiling the vineyard. Husband, take up your pump action shotgun and go blast them, go get them. The man is to do it. Thirdly, why is the man to take up the responsibility of overcoming divisions? Look at verse three in Song of Solomon two. The man is compared to an apple tree, and the woman finds great delight in sitting in the shadow of the apple tree. Verse three, as an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young women. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. It is not you men who are sitting in her shadow, the shadow of her leadership, the shadow of her initiative. It is she that is sitting in the shadow of your leadership and your initiative. Fourth reason, look at verse four. Look at verse four, Song of Solomon chapter two, verse four. In chapter two, verse four, it's the man who brings the woman to the banqueting hall, not the woman bringing the man. Verse four says this. He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love. He brings her, she doesn't do it. Fifth reason, it's the man in verse five, look at verse five. sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am sick in love, the woman says. It is the man who sustains the woman with raisins and who refreshes her with apples. And then finally in verse six, it is the man whose left hand is under the head of the woman and whose right hand embraces her, not the other way around. Look at verse six, his left hand is under my head and his right hand embraces me. This is a timeless picture of a robust, masculine, Priestly, headship, initiative-taking, going toward the fray type of overcoming of division. Do you notice a pattern here? It is the man who initiates. It is the man who leads. It is the man who sticks his neck out and takes the risk all for his beloved. This is no less true when it comes to leveling divisions in our marriage. Man, you hear a bump in the night, it is the coward who says to his wife, honey, go get the gun and go downstairs and see what's going on. And I'm going to sit here as a coward under my blanket and hope that all is well. No, we must be the ones who when we hear the bump in the night, we go toward the fray. And sometimes it's the case that we are the source of divisions in our marriage. Maybe we're lazy, maybe we're selfish, maybe we're uncaring, maybe we are not present. You could be not present while being present, right? You could be absent by being present. You may be physically there, but you may be physically there as a bump on a log. a presence that is absent in his fathering, a presence that is absent in his husbandry, as it were, a presence that is absent in his taking dominion over the marriage. So the first thing, men, that I would point out to you, and this is to us, and I make no bones about it, I fail often at this, And when I do, I am showing myself to be a coward, okay? Last week, I think it was last week, what did I call you men to do to, well, maybe it was two weeks ago, engage in this homework assignment of asking your wives how you could see her better and hear her better. That's a very brave thing to do, isn't it? Well, here's another brave thing to do as a man. Be willing to make the initiative to initiate resolution, conflict resolution in the context of division. But then secondly, there's a word here for ladies. If the man is to be the one who is to initiate resolution in overcoming divisions, secondly, the wife follows her husband's lead in leveling divisions. The wife follows her husband's lead in leveling divisions. Look at verse 9b. In verse 8, the beloved, the woman, hears the voice of her beloved. She sees him coming, leaping over the mountains, bounding over the hills. And then in verse 9, my beloved is like Or yeah, verse nine, my beloved is like a gazelle or a young, behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing through the windows, looking through the lattice. And then verse 10, my beloved speaks and says to me, arise my love, et cetera, et cetera. What is implied here is that when he says arise, she arises. When he says, arise, she raises up. She heeds the call of her husband as he seeks to shepherd her, as he seeks to lead her. When he calls her to come away, she comes. Ladies, I want you to remember something, and I feel the need to say this, not only because this is the ministry of the word and this is the place where we need to address things like this, but because evangelicalism is doing such a horrible job right now in reminding ladies in the church of this. In Genesis 3.16, one of the curses that fell upon the woman goes like this, your desire, woman, will be for your husband and yet he shall rule over you. What does that mean? Well, the first thing I want you to know is there are many evangelicals today who are trying to say that this is not a bad thing, this is actually a good thing. Some will say the desire that she has for her husband is a sexual desire and that's good, but the second half, and he shall rule over you, well, that's part of the curse, that's bad. Well, it's precisely the opposite way around, you see. Let me tell you something, that the man is head of the marriage relationship, listen, is not a result of the fall. It's not a result of the fall. Think about it for a second. I want you to answer me here. This is not a rhetorical question. Who ate of the fruit first? Eve, the woman. Did sin enter into the world when Eve ate of the fruit? Nope, not according to Romans chapter five. According to Romans chapter five, sin entered into the world by the disobedience of Adam, which means that Eve stood under the headship of her husband before the fall. Headship is built into the warp and woof and fabric of creation. Even people in the pagan world get this concept. They realize somebody's gotta lead, The responsibility has got to fall on somebody when we make decisions, right? Okay? So headship is not a matter of the curse. And by the way, if headship is a curse and it's a part of the fall, then the very relationship in which we stand to Jesus Christ and that He is our head and we submit to Him is inherently flawed. But that is not the case. Headship is not the problem. No, coming back to Genesis 3.16, here's the problem. The problem is that in the context of that headship where God has said to the man, you are the head for better or for worse. Whatever happens in the context of this marriage, I'm holding you responsible, man. That in the context of that, it is the woman who wants to overpower it. It is the woman who wants to take the reins and rule. Now, listen, I've done enough counseling to know that this doesn't equally apply to every woman in every marriage relationship. There are some women who really don't struggle with submission. Yes, they exist. Okay, but there are some women who not only do they struggle with submission, but they are even in their struggle against it, manipulative in how they carry it out. It's a very dangerous thing. Women, you must understand that your native nature, your native state as a daughter of Eve, a sinful daughter of Eve is that this is going to be your proclivity. This is going to be your proclivity. Okay? And you need to keep that in mind because, look. We always say, women, you submit to your husband unless he does something that violates the word of God. And absolutely, you know, the Bible teaches that. But I think, I would say, in all the counseling that I've done, the majority of issues that arise as conflict between man and wife are not really like, the husband wants to do something bad, or wrong, or sinful, and the wife wants to do the righteous thing. It's almost never that. That does happen from time to time. What it typically is, just in the normal rhythms of life, is that it's a wisdom category. There are multiple ways that you could come at this decision, and the wife wants to get a minivan, okay? The husband wants to get, I don't know, a four-door Chevy pickup, okay? There's just as many seats you could put there. You know, like is one sinful and one righteous? No, it's a decision that needs to be made, and somebody's gotta make it. Somebody's got to take into consideration all the opinions that have been given, and they've got to pull the trigger, and they've got to be responsible for it, okay? That's where most of life's decisions are, and in those things, listen to me, in those things, the wife is called to submit to her husband. Now listen. Ladies, if you find yourself, if you find yourself getting frustrated at your man when you come to him with constructive criticism, and you should, by the way, okay? Don't take that verse in 1 Peter that says that, you know, women will win them over with a word that's talking about women who are married to unbelievers, okay? And, you know, I go on Sermon Audio, you can listen to the sermon that I gave on that, and that's my take on it. Okay, but there is an application for women who are married to believers. Obviously, you are to come with a sweet and gentle spirit. Obviously, you should seek to affirm your husband and all the things that he's doing well before you bring that piece of criticism, okay? But let me ask you a question, ladies. It's just kind of a self-diagnostic question that you can ask yourself that really is a heart check for when you go to address issues in your husband's life. Are there people in your life, are there people in your life that are trying to give you constructive criticism and you're blowing them off? Are there people in your life, whether they are girlfriends, whether they are men, whether they are, you know, whatever, who want so much to be your friend that they're willing to tell you the hard things and you blow them off? Well, then don't be surprised when you go to your husband and he blows you off. The very expectation that you should blow off criticism in this context but not have it blown off when it's coming from your lips is a hypocritical expectation. What it comes down to is a heart matter for you. Are you teachable? Are you teachable? Don't expect your husband to be teachable if you're not teachable. And listen, we can all gather about us counselors that'll tell us what we want to hear, don't we? We can find counselors that'll tell us what we want to hear. It is easy to give a one-sided account of your problems to any given Joe Schmo. But it is harder when you bring your husband's input into the equation. It's harder when you really depict things as they are and are humble and honest, and then you get that constructive criticism, and the question is how will you receive it? So how do we approach our husbands, ladies? How do you approach your husbands with constructive criticism? You should. You should preface it with plenty of affirmation, but you should lead him as he seeks to lead you and not try to usurp his efforts at leading. And guess what? Submission is never submission if you want to do it, okay? Submission is submission when you have to do it. when it's hard to do it, okay? That's the whole idea of submission. So don't say that you submit to your husband, but in reality, only submit to him when he has your idea, right? You need to submit to him when it's not your idea, or maybe it's the polar opposite of your idea, and you need to take into consideration that God has placed that man in your life to overcome divisions in the relationship. He's not perfect, he doesn't walk on water, but be careful about the native instinct that women have to manipulate that relationship and take the reins of power. Alright, so those are two words, a word for husbands, a word for wives. Let's turn now to the second horizon and let's consider Jesus Christ. We are the church, beloved. We are the ones who, I think, from the very beginning, I want you to think about this for a second. From the very beginning, what did we do in our father, Adam, when we realized that we had sinned? We created divisions. We built walls, so to speak. What did Adam do? He goes and hides in the garden. He goes and hides in the garden as if he could get away from God. As if he could get away from God, he goes and hides in the garden. He makes fig leaves, he tries to shield himself from the judgment of God. He erects walls, and guess what? Mankind has been doing that ever since the beginning. We're erecting walls between we and God. We don't want God in our life. And the most extreme way in which we do this, not we, but mankind, is I'm going to get God out of my life by just saying He doesn't exist. The fool has said in his heart, what? There is no God. You want to get God off your back? You don't want to have to submit. You want to do it like Frank Sinatra, your way. I did it my way. You just say God's not there. Or another way that we do it is we create a God in our own image, right? We create a God that is suitable to us, that fits the zeitgeist of the age, the spirit of the age. We are good at erecting walls. So there we are. We are the beloved of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are behind the wall. It is a wall that we have erected. And what does Jesus Christ do? Jesus Christ comes down and he destroys and obliterates every single wall of division between God and man. How does he do that? When Jesus Christ was hanging on the cross, he says, it is finished. And when that happened, the veil that stood between the holy place and the most holy place, that divided the place where some people could come, but not everybody could come. In the holy place, it was only the high priest, but once a year only he could enter on behalf of the people of God, but the commoners could not. Even the other priests could not. There was a division between God and man, and when Jesus Christ says, it is finished, it is as if, anthropomorphically speaking, God took one hand and grabbed one side of the veil, and another hand and grabbed the other side of the veil, and He rent it asunder. He tore it in half. It split from top to bottom. He tore down the division that stood between God and man. This is what Jesus Christ does in his life, and in his death, and in his resurrection, and in his ascension. He levels divisions that stand between us. and God. How else does he do this? He levels the dividing wall that separates Jews from Gentiles. We see this in Ephesians chapter 2 verses 14 and 16, right? Not only in the temple was there that veil between God and man, but there was a wall between Jew and Gentile. Right? And what does Paul say in Ephesians 2 that God does? He tears down the dividing wall that separates Jew from Gentile. Oh, how applicable this is today. You say, well, that was 2,000 years ago. You know, we don't really have division between Jews and Gentiles, really? Well, it's not only that. How about between blacks and whites? I continue to hear in the evangelical blogosphere Black folk telling other black folk, leave your church loudly. This is like a movement. Have you heard of this? They're encouraged because you can't be safe in a white church. Well, first off, I don't like this idea of white churches, black churches, yellow churches. I don't like that idea in the first place. I realize that just as a result of the fall, there are divisions that happen. There's cultural differences. I get all of that. but urging people to migrate to churches where they find more people that have the same skin color of them is the polar opposite of what God does in the gospel. It is the polar opposite. No, beloved, God broke down the dividing walls between Jew and Gentile, and you could extend that to any race, any culture, any nationality, any traditions that there may be that stand as a division between God's people And the way you do that in the application of the gospel is you say this, I am not first a man, I am not first a woman, I am not first a white person or a black person, I am not first a tall person or a short person, I am first and foremost a Christian. I am first and foremost a child of the living God and I look around to see others who upon their lips are professing the same Christ and I say, brother, sister, beloved, friend. That's what I say to them. I don't care what color skin they have. It's crazy to me how the church descends back into nonsense. Back into nonsense. Christ has broken down the dividing wall and this is what it should be like in the church as well. But not only that, Christ breaks down walls in our sanctification. You know what the thing is, beloved? Because our native instinct is to build walls between us and God, we all do it, you do it, I do it, Okay, God comes to us in the personal work of Jesus Christ, he breaks down the wall, but then we just keep throwing him up. We keep throwing him up, right? Jesus comes to you, not in his physical presence, okay, but he comes to you, listen to me, he comes to you on the lips of your brother or your sister, and he says, repent. Well, I'm not gonna listen to that person. I've read more books than that person. I know more Greek words than that person. I've been a Christian longer than that person. That person, you know, they don't have a good reputation in the church. Look at what you're doing Brick by brick by brick handed to you by the way by Satan you are erecting a wall between yourself and the work of the Holy Spirit You are erecting a wall If you think that you cannot learn something or be called to repentance by somebody in this congregation, you don't understand what the church is about. The church is not a social club. I'll say that again and again and again until you pry this Bible out of my cold, dead fingers. The church is not a social club. You know what it is? You want to call it something? It's kind of like a gym. where we're tearing muscles spiritually, right? You come in, you do your sets, you're tearing muscles, and some people are tearing them for you because they're putting things before you in front of your face, gently, graciously, hope, sometimes not, because we're sinners, and they're saying, this is what the Lord would have you work on. And to the degree that out of pompous, arrogant pride, we say, no, I don't have to, more importantly, listen, it's not convenient for me. It's not convenient for me. Josh, I've been dealing with this for years. Yeah, that's the problem. That's the problem. Don't you know that Christ has come to set us free? Don't put up a border for how far that can go. Christ has come to set us free, not only from the judgment and the penalty of sin, not only from hell, He's come to give us the eschaton, but He has come to give us victory over sin now. You are not a slave to sin, my friend. If you profess the name of Jesus Christ, you have in the power of the gospel and in the indwelling of the Spirit, the ability and the power to overcome anything in your life. You say, that's grandiose. That's what my God tells me to pray for. Pray for that which is above and beyond what you could ever imagine. Pray for those things. And then get up from your knees, open your eyes, and get to work and make it happen. In Revelation chapter three, listen to me, in Revelation chapter three, Jesus comes and he says, verse 20, behold, 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. Look at Jesus, look husbands, look at Jesus coming to the door of division. He's coming. He doesn't say, no, no, no, I'll wait till you come. Jesus comes to us in the gospel, you see. He comes to us in the gospel and He knocks on the door of our heart and He's waiting. Now, listen to me. We often use this verse to talk about evangelism to unbelievers. You know what's fascinating? This verse is on the lips of Jesus as He's addressing the church at Laodicea. You know what that means? I think the primary audience are those in the church, not unbelievers. Now, it may be unbelievers in the church, but make no mistake, it's those in the church. And the fact of the matter is, when it comes to sanctification, this is where we are. Beloved, when you look at Revelation 20, you should see it as a mirror reflecting you. God comes to you in the gospel every week, the preached, heralded Word of God, and He's knocking on your door. What is it that you are erecting so that he can't get to that? What wall are you erecting so that he cannot get to that? What room, as it were, to change metaphors in the house are you locking him out of? Because here's the thing, listen to me. There's a sense in which Jesus says, look, we can do this the easy way or we can do it the hard way, okay? This is how God works. Jesus will come to you. I know your sins. I know your secrets. I know your struggles. I'm not here to shame you. In fact, I was shamed as I was naked upon the tree. I took the shame for you. So I'm not coming as a judge. I'm coming as your Lord and Savior. I'm knocking. I'm knocking and I'm saying, I see it. I'm putting my finger on it. What are you going to do, beloved? What are you going to do? And you know what? If the Lord grants us mercy to repent, we repent. That's the easy way. That's the easy way. But you know what? Sometimes that doesn't get our attention. It doesn't get our attention. Do you know what the Lord does? He says, okay, the hard way. And He brings trial in our life. Don't call it punishment. Okay, perfect love casts out all punishment, it casts out all judgment, it casts out all fear. No, read the whole chapter of Hebrews chapter 12 where it explains how God the Father comes to us. He comes to us as a father to a legitimate son because of the work of Jesus Christ, a legitimate daughter, not an illegitimate daughter or son. He comes to us and he says, it is for discipline that I come to you, okay, to bring glory to myself and to bring healing to you. Some of you in this congregation, you're wondering why is my marriage where it is? You're wondering why is my relationship with my children where it is? Why this, why that? And you know what, there's a lot of complicated factors in those questions, but the first place we should look is to ourself. The first place we should look is to ourself. What are we doing? that contributes to those divisions? And where in our life are we not allowing God to knock them down? See, Jesus comes to us in the gospel again. I say, He comes to us in the gospel. And what he wants us to do is this, if our native state is to erect walls, then in our renewed state in Jesus Christ, our nature should be to tear them all down. We'll tear them down, wherever I go, I tear this one down, I tear that one down, like Paul in Philippians chapter three, I count everything. as lost because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish in order that I might gain Christ." Look at, just hear Paul, see Paul straining forward for Christ. He's tearing down walls here, tearing down walls there. He wants to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the power of His resurrection even in his life now in his disposition and posture towards his wife, towards her husband, toward her children, toward their co-workers, toward everyone in my sphere of influence. I want to tear down walls and I do that by knowing Christ more. Is Christ lovely to you this morning? Is Christ so lovely to you this morning that you have the wherewithal to address and attack and devastate and level the divisions that stand between you and Him by means of fellowship? This is what God is calling us to do this morning. And then finally, just coming back really quickly to Song of Solomon 2, notice that there is the wall, there is the window, and then there is the lattice. Jesus stands behind the lattice. And notice that when somebody's standing behind the lattice, you can kind of see them and kind of not, right? You just get just little tiny images. You can make out the little boxes and you could put it together. For some of you this morning who are unbelievers, that's how Jesus comes to you in your life because Maybe you don't normally come to church. Maybe you don't normally mix it up with Christians. You don't normally get this exposure to the means of grace where Jesus and His voice is coming to you every Sunday. You don't normally get that. So Jesus to you, as you find yourself here this morning, is like standing behind a lattice. You just get a little glimpse of Him. And here Jesus is, and he's giving you a glimpse of him. It's obstructed by all the other passions and desires that are pulling you away from that image. But let me say this, dear friend. Jesus will not always strive with you. Jesus will not always reveal himself to you. Jesus, if you rebuff him, may not come back. Today, Paul says, today is the day of salvation. If you see Jesus peering at you through that lattice and He says to you, you are a sinner, I'm putting my finger on what stands between you and God, but though that is the bad news, let me give you the good news. The good news is I have come as a solution to your problem. to bear the sin and guilt and punishment that you deserve on the cross and give you in exchange my perfect life. That's what Jesus says to unbeliever and believer alike. Turn from your sins and believe in Jesus Christ. He will give you his righteousness, he will atone for your sin, and he will continue to level divisions in your life until he brings you to the eschaton. Let's pray. Father God, we thank you for this division-leveling Savior, and we pray, Father, that we would hear His voice clearly, that we would see His face, and that His face would be lovely to us, and His voice would be sweet. We ask these things in Christ's name, amen. Let's stand for the glory of pottery.