There, my friends, goes a passionate Presbyterian. You had to be here last week to know how fortunate I am as a preacher to be able to preach through a series and have a brother be moved and inspired by God's Word to produce a work of art, a work of praise to Jesus. And I hope you are able to pick up the nuances whereby that which is a love song, horizontal, is also intrinsically vertical as praise to Jesus. What a beautiful picture of the insight of the lens of Song of Songs in our relationship to each other and to Jesus. As I hear that I think of a couple that I knew a very mature Christian couple many years ago. A couple who were leaders in their church and seemed to have a very good marriage, seemed to have everything together. And one day the wife came to me and she said, she was in tears, and she said, I want to kill myself. And I asked her what was the cause of this desperate matter she had, and she said, I don't feel like my husband loves me. And he was faithful to her, he was a good provider, seemed like a good husband in many ways, and say, what was missing? What else could she want? And she said, I don't feel special to him. I feel like sex is just For his drives there's no romance, there's no tenderness, there's no affection. And I feel starved. So I went to the brother and I talked to him about his view of love that seemed to be lacking in affection and romance. And I asked him how he understood that and I was stunned by his response. He said, what's wrong with that? Romance is a worldly thing. We all know that love is not a matter of feelings, love is a matter of will. And so I asked him, why do you love your wife? He said, oh, because Christ commands me to. I said, no, no, no. Tell me what is special to you about her. What are the ways that you delight in her? And again, I was stunned when he said, Actually, I've never thought about that. He wasn't very anxious to continue the conversation until I persuaded him that his marriage might be at stake. And then I did something that I had not, until that point, ever done in terms of a counseling assignment. I assigned him to read the Song of Solomon. And he agreed to do that. A week or two later, when we were meeting, he was in tears. And he said, I am amazed at the terrain of love that I've never explored. And it has transformed my understanding of who my wife is and how I'm to love her. For many of us, we need to be convinced that our God is a passionate God. Some of you may need that kind of an epiphany. And so I am taking four months to go through this precious book that we might see something deeper about the nature of our God and His intention for how we live as passionate Presbyterians. Amen? We'll get a little louder amen by about the sixth week here. Haven't set off the sprinklers yet, long way from that, but we're still going to try. Last week we began looking through the text and saw that this girl is intoxicated with his love. She sees him as more fragrant to her than cologne. We saw that others adore him also. And then she talked about how modestly She was reflecting on her skin being not fair because being under the authority of her brothers, they forced her to work out hard in the sun, and so she had neglected her complexion. She wants to be with Solomon, but she is not about to compromise her reputation to make that happen. And so she's waiting on God for this love to ripen. Now at chapter 1 verse 9, for the first time he speaks and it becomes quite plain that this attraction is thoroughly mutual. Again we want to look at their relationship and see that it is but the prismatic refraction of the pure white love of Jesus Christ and his bride. Look what he says to her in his opening line, I liken you, my darling, to a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh. We may stop there and say, his intentions are probably good, but he needs a little coaching on his romantic lines. You know, I don't know a lot, but I think I might be able to teach this guy a thing or two. Well, let's look at that, because I think that in that one verse we are seeing a couple of things. First of all, I think that verse brings us to the historicity of this, because it moves us to see that this is from a man in history writing this. Solomon, I believe, is the author. It's indicated, I think, that Solomon, because Solomon was a great lover of horses, particularly Solomon loved stallions from Egypt. In 1 Kings 10, verses 28 and 29, you see that, how he imported many, and so What we need to understand about Hebrew poetry here is that Solomon is not communicating anything in terms of a physical comparison, but simply the subjective effect of this woman's beauty upon him. Now, if you have any love for horses, then you would appreciate that thousands of people went to Pimlico to watch the Preakness yesterday and were just bedazzled by seeing funny side after winning the Kentucky Derby, come streaking ahead of the pack by nearly eight lengths to gracefully, in this streak of lightning, grace and beauty in motion, come and take also the Preakness going on to try and win the Triple Crown at Belmont in about three weeks. And that would excite some people. But a lot of us aren't into horses now, like people were back then, as a part of their lives. So maybe a more culturally apt comparison would be a guy who really loves cars to say to his wife, my dear, when I look at you, you're so exciting, you make me think of a Ferrari Testarossa going from 0 to 60 in 4.8 seconds. You know, it's the effect, you see. That's what's being communicated here. Now, there is one particular commentator, a scholar who has a view of this that I find intriguing. He takes a slightly different view and you can consider it for what it's worth. He looks at verse 9, I liken you my darling to a mare harnessed to one of the chariots of Pharaoh and he sees in this an ancient war technique. Picture yourself in a battle and there's about 20 stallions hitched to war chariots bearing down on you. Stallions used in war were always, you know, stallion in case you don't know, or the male horses, and so these were male war horses coming bearing down on you, and what Pharaoh would do on occasion was he would take a mare in heat, hitch her up to a chariot, and send her out onto the battlefield. And you know what? Not one stallion would get to you. Somehow they'd get a little distracted coming across that field and take off after the mayor and she would of course protect you from all these chariots and these horses. Now what would he be saying in those terms? If that guy is at all on target, he's saying something like, my darling, your beauty is so distracting to me, it drives me wild, you see. Okay, give me a little more credit. You know, it's really not such an off-the-wall kind of thing. Of course, she would understand a little bit of what the effect was. Now, that's his opening line. There are three parts to this song which I've decided goes from 1-9 to 2-2. Everybody differs on these things, where the songs start, where they end, what's included in the first, second, all this. Some people say there's eight songs, some people say 18, I mean, there's all over. But we're going to say from 1-9 to 2-2 is a unit. And there are three points that I want you to notice in this section. First of all, that he enhances her beauty. The idea here is jewelry, that's the blank, the first blank. Because notice, after recognizing her distracting beauty, I liken you my darling to a mare harnessed to one of chariots of pharaoh. He goes on to say, your cheeks are beautiful with earrings. Your neck with strings of jewels. We will make you earrings of gold studded with silver. And from this I deduce a basic principle of biblical romance, that one of the man's roles is to appreciate and to enhance his woman's beauty, both physical and spiritual. To appreciate it and to enhance it. I understand that there are the warnings in 1st Timothy chapter 2, 1st Peter 3 and other places against a focus on jewelry and braiding of hair and these kinds of things, focusing on the external rather than the internal character. But nowhere does scripture forbid the spending of money on jewels. Who made jewels? God made them. He made them to be beautiful and for us to appreciate. So according to a man's means, which can vary greatly at various times in his life, various cultures, I think it is entirely appropriate that the man delight to say, I want to adorn the beauty of my wife by buying her some jewelry. Now, let me say at this point, I assure you men that the women did not pay me to say this. This is from Scripture. I can imagine several of us next November getting little cards on our bureaus that says something like, Christmas is coming, Song of Solomon 1, 10 and 11. Love, your mayor. But don't blame me, I was not bribed. This is, I believe, what Scripture says. And I must confess that I really enjoy shopping for jewelry for Kathy. There's nothing I like better than find some topaz or aquamarine that will bring out the blue of her beautiful eyes or something that will set off her fair skin and just enjoy picturing what she'll be like with that and delighting to see her as she gets it and wears it. I pick that out for her. That was what I thought would set you off. There is that adornment, that delight to be able to do that. But I believe that reflects a deeper truth. It is the truth that Christ adorns his bride. This is pointing to something that is more substantial. You remember in Ephesians chapter 5 where it talks about husbands loving your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her. to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. He presents her as a radiant church. That is, he adorns her beauty with his own beauty. Jesus comes and adorns your beauty with the beauty of his holiness. And so a man is to not just give physical jewels to adorn his wife's physical beauty, but I believe there is here the indication of our desire to adorn our wife's spiritual beauty. Now, how do you do that? Well, I think, for instance, to provide for a wife who doesn't get much time to be with the Lord because of kids and other duties to say I'm going to take the kids or relieve you of whatever it is so that you can go off for a couple of hours and have your time with the Lord. So that you can go off and be with him undistracted and with your mind at rest. It means that he understands by discerning in her what are her spiritual gifts. He doesn't simply say you know you really seem to have a gift for teaching or writing or this or that and I hope someday you'll get to use it. But he's willing to invest time and money to say, right now I want to see you develop that, I want to see you enable to exercise that gift and whatever it takes for me to enhance that in you, to adorn your beauty and the gifts that God has given to you, I want to do that, I want to serve you in that way. Husbands, let me ask you, do you delight to adorn your wife's beauty, physically and spiritually? That's what you see here in Scripture, in Song of Songs 1, 9 to 11. But let me also caution you wives, very important at this point. This is for God the Holy Spirit to speak to your husbands about. Beware that you don't beat your husbands up with this text. Hey, heard what the preacher said? That's what you're supposed to do. I'll tell you, boy, you're a loser. You've been really blowing it on this here. I'll tell you, better see you in the next month, you know. And, you know, so you start preaching and you think you're going to change it. You know, you're not going to do it. And there's a temptation here for Satan to get some of your wives bitter, to feel victims. Oh, my husband, if only he would do this for me. Don't look at me, I am not by any stretch perfect on this. One of the things I really regret is in the early years of our marriage I did not pay enough attention to what my wife's gifts were to enable her to develop and to exercise those gifts. I speak from weakness in this. But you wives need to be careful that you don't become bitter and think that you have gotten a short end of the deal by the kind of husband that God has given to you. But remember that always, for every one of us, it is the going to Christ for Him to adorn us that becomes our rest and our satisfaction. Not looking to another person. Amen? Amen. So, you move from His adorning to her stanza, in this song. And here we get to one of the real gems, no pun intended there, of this whole song. She now speaks in chapter 1 verses 12 to 14. You remember in verse 3 she had focused on his fragrance, pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes. Your name is like perfume poured out. And then in verse 12, look what she says, while the king was at his table, my perfume spread its fragrance. Now, what is her perfume? Look at verse 13. My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts, a little pouch of sweet-smelling myrrh. My lover is to me a fragrant cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of En Gedi, that beautiful oasis. Some of you may have seen pictures of the waterfalls and the green of En Gedi. What is she saying? She's saying that he is her fragrance. So the second point is she delights in his aroma, blank is fragrance, which leads to the next principle, namely, one of the woman's roles is to appreciate and to affirm his worth, the worth of her husband, of her man. She is saying, I am fragrant because his fragrance is upon me. And she's affirming his character again in that. I cannot, as I read this, miss what seems to be an obvious reference to Jesus Christ. And yet I must tell you that of 13, 14 commentaries I have checked on this, not one of them sees that connection. Where in scripture Does God speak of Jesus as a sweet fragrance? Do you remember? Well, you ought to. We spent years in it, right? Book of Ephesians, where else are you going to find it? Some verses before on husbands and wives, mutual love, Paul says in chapter 5 verse 1, the imitators of God, therefore, is dearly loved children. and live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Jesus is a fragrant offering. Now you think of the power of fragrance, the power of scent. There is a multi-billion dollar industry in this country Because scent sells. And a multi-billion dollar industry is based on perfumes, and colognes, and toilet water, and body washes, and aromatherapy, new word for our generation. I mean, we put scent in everything, even lemon scent in our cleansers. I mean, you clean the toilet bowl, you got to have some fragrance, you see. Fragrance is all over the place. Because scent sells. Odors deeply affect us. And back in those days there was more stink, to put it bluntly, than we are used to. Sewers were open. East of Jerusalem was a big pit called Gehenna, a smoldering garbage dump. Middle Ages we had open sewers and when women walked through the cities they would carry little bouquets that they would hold right under their nose. They were called nose gays. in order for the fragrance of the flowers to help you to get through the overpowering stench of the open sewers. People didn't take baths very often back then. So the world was a mixture of foul and sweet scents, and those have very visceral responses. Of all the things you can analyze what you see and hear, you don't analyze odors. You either like them or you don't like them. Just this last week there was an article in the Washington Post on a rare plant that has been cultivated in Florida, just west of Miami, and they give the Latin name of it, but it is more commonly known as Mr. Stinky. And there is a picture here, which I'm sure you kids will want to see after the service, of a botanist checking the size of the thing. It grows up to six feet tall and he's got a gas mask on. There was a fellow who worked several hundred feet from this, had his windows closed in his office and had to leave early because he was overpowered by the stench of this plant. They say its fragrance is something like the smell of a rotting elephant corpse. And it affects people, you know? I remember years ago seeing an ad in a paper for a nearly new Corvette, no damage, $500. And I wondered, you know, why would somebody sell a nearly new Corvette for $500, no damage to it? It turned out the driver had had a heart attack in it and died at the wheel. The thing had just kind of drifted off to the road, but it was two weeks before anybody found the guy on this country road, and so his body had laid in that Corvette. And the odor reduced the value of that car to nearly nothing. Just the odor. We live in a world of stench, don't we? Corruption, and lies, and abuse, and the way people treat each other, and the things you read in the paper, and on, and on, and on, and on. And the scripture says we can go to the sweet fragrance of Jesus. We can escape To be with him, Mary Magdalene, I mean, not Mary Magdalene, Mary and the sister of Martha and Lazarus, just before Jesus' death is that sweet offering. You remember what she offered? An alabaster vial of sweet precious perfume, nard. John 12.3 says that the whole house was filled with the fragrance of that perfume. Whatever else there was that smelled in the area, it was diminished, it was overpowered by the sweet fragrance of that nard. You know, that word nard is the same word that is used in Psalm 112, where she says, while the king was at his table, my perfume, literally my nard, spread its fragrance. And you and I, go away to that secret place to escape the stench of the world, to know the precious perfume of his presence, then his fragrance becomes like a sachet that we wear and we take on his fragrance. So she says, my lover is to me like a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts. He's like a fragrant cluster of henna blossoms. There is this fragrance that comes upon her from him and she recognizes that and she praises him for that. Then you see a kind of a swift repartee in the next few verses. Briefly the third point is that they admire one another openly in blank is delight. It's simply the expression of their delight in one another. Quickly, you notice verse 15, he says, you're beautiful and your eyes are soft as doves. How beautiful you are, my darling, how beautiful. Your eyes are doves. You know, it's funny, you read these commentators and you say, where do these guys live? Most of them say, we're not really sure why he uses the symbol doves there, you know, don't see any obvious connection. Commentary after commentary, you know, not really sure, talk about Syrian doves, talk about this, It seems to me pretty obvious. You think of love, you think of something soft, and so it's a connection between the softness of her eyes. People say eyes are like a window to the soul. You can't know a person's heart, but you look at a woman, you look at her eyes. It sure beats looking at her ears, you don't see much of her heart from that, you know, or various other parts of her body. Maybe the hands come the closest, but I can gaze at my wife's teeth all I want and I'm not going to really know a whole lot about what's on her mind. Unless they're bared, maybe I'd tell me something. But if I look at her eyes... You know, I remember when I first was falling in love with Kathy, one of the things I would most love to do, in fact that actually disconcerted her, I would just want to gaze for minutes at her eyes, the softness of her eyes. The slightest change in a person's mood is reflected, it's communicated through the eye. And he says, I look at your eyes and they're soft. They capture me. And she responds, verse 16, you're handsome and you're charming and what a romantic place we're in. Look, she says, how handsome you are. That's the same word as beautiful. She simply reflects the same Hebrew word back to him. How handsome you are, my lover. Oh, how charming. And our bed is verdant. What that means is it's green. That is, they're outside. So the ground cover or grass or something that's there, which is saying that, you know, it's good to be outdoors in romantic places. You know, it's don't fear the heart. Get outside. Enjoy that. Just make sure if you're not married, you don't get too alone where you can't be disturbed. One of the unique things about the song is that it is a song of playful innocence in their love. And that is a pattern for us, so that as we see that, we see that they are able to be in a romantic setting that they delight in, but lust does not intrude in that. And so it becomes a pattern for us so that we look at this as something so beautiful, we don't want to compromise it through lust. We hold that up and we say, that's how it ought to be. But we know our hearts and we know that if we get in a really lonely spot where we will not be disturbed and it's too romantic, we need to guard our hearts. But don't ignore your heart and the romance that there is in this, in its delight. And he responds to what she says, yes, yes, the beams of our house are cedars and our rafters are firs. He's saying, look at the cedars and the junipers, and you know, it's like a house here, you know. Maybe there's a little bit of a hint she picks up, yeah, it's kind of like our house, you know, oh, our house. And so she responds in chapter 2, verse 1, well, I'm just a rose of Sharon, just a lily of the valleys. Now those were pretty flowers. You know, but so are dandelions, you know, if you really look at them up close. These were very common flowers in that area. And so what she is saying is, well, you know, I'm not denying I'm attractive, but I'm common. I'm just a common flower. And of course, look how he picks up on that in verse two. Oh no, like a lily among thorns is my darling among the maidens. Do you see the playfulness here? Do you see this intended pattern that God wants for us to delight in? That's the way it ought to be. Now, let me conclude by asking you briefly then three questions from these observations. First of all, when is the last time that you marrieds told one another about the other's attractiveness to you? We spend so much time focusing on what is wrong with each other, don't we? I need to tell you this, it's really been bothering me, you know, I figure I'd better get it out, you know, I want to not let this come between us and so, you know, we spend so much time resolving conflict or dealing with mundane decisions, issues about the kids and the garbage and the bills and on and on and on, it's so seldom do we get down to the nourishing heart talk. Just this week, I was thinking about this, and Kathy and I have a weekly date night, and I took her out to the restaurant, and I wanted to focus on this, not just all the regular stuff. And unfortunately, I brought up something that had happened in my day, and that led to some issues and some things that she responded to, and then I thought, I better listen to what she's saying, and we got off into that, and it took the rest of the meal And afterwards, even though I needed to hear what she had to say, which was intended to be helpful about what was she observing about me, I felt that there was a loss. So seldom do we follow through on saying, what is it about you that delights me? Why do I love you? Why are you special to me? Let me suggest that you consider doing that this afternoon. you husbands and wives. And it may take some courage for some of you to do that. Maybe the patterns of your communication have been destructive recently or difficult and this would just seem kind of out of character. But, you know, I mean, you can blame it on me. Well, I said to do it, so, you know, let's do it. And maybe you ought to start by writing down three things that particularly you find delightful about your husband or your wife, and then that you share those things, and that you discuss them, you know, here it is, and oh, really, what about that, and you talk about it, and the temptation will be to start to qualify it, you know. And that's really true, but, you know, you notice he doesn't say, I liken you, my darling, to a mare harnessed to one of Shapiro's chariots, but I really hate it when you pick your nose, you know. There's no qualification. And we really need to be careful that when we're doing this, just focus on the delight. You can deal with the other stuff later, some other time. There needs to be those conversations that are just simply affirming and nourishing. We so need that. Second question. Do you see His changing you, that is Jesus, changing you as loving enhancement? Do you see that Jesus is looking at you with his love and he intends to adorn you with his holiness. And that sometimes is painful. I remember some years ago reading about an ecologist, a botanist, a biologist who was really concerned for some sea turtles on this island to save them and they were several hundred yards from the sea and so she flipped them over and lassoed them and dragged them through the brush and over the trails and rocks and things to get them out to the sea. And she reflected on the fact that the poor sea turtles probably thought she was trying to destroy them and knock their brains out, didn't realize that she was doing this in fact to save them. And the person who was observing that reflected that sometimes It's difficult to tell that the hand that flips over your life and starts dragging you through the brush and across the trails into things that hurt and scrape is really doing it because He loves you and wants to protect you and to save you, not to hurt you or to harm you. Jesus looks at you with eyes of love this morning, those soft eyes that say, my child, do you trust me? My bride, whom I love, Can you rest in my care that what I'm doing in your life, even though it may hurt now, is intended to adorn your beauty with my own holiness imparted to you in the only way that I can do it? Can you trust Jesus and rest in Him this morning in whatever He's doing in your life? It'll depend on whether you look at His eyes to see that those are eyes of love for you. and can trust his character and spend time in the perfume of his presence. That's the final and last question. Do you savor his fragrance as your delight? Do you spend part of each day escaping the stench of the world to get away to his table and to breathe deeply the perfume of his presence? Not simply to study a few verses of scripture, or go through some devotional, or listen to some Christian station commuting to work, or play some tape of somebody else's message, but your own coming before the Lord in His Word, maybe singing a song or a hymn, meditating, crying out to Him, visualizing, imagining Him, connecting with His heart. John Eldredge in his book, Wild at Heart, has this to say, The whole point of a devotional life is connecting with God. This is our primary antidote to the counterfeits that the world holds out to us. If you do not have God and have Him deeply, you will turn to other lovers. As Maurice Roberts says, ecstasy and delight are essential to the believer's soul and they promote sanctification. We are not meant to live without spiritual exhilaration. The believer is in spiritual danger if he allows himself to go for any length of time without tasting the love of Christ. When Christ ceases to fill the heart with satisfaction, our souls will go in silent search of other lovers. Are you satisfied with the perfume of the presence of Christ in your life this morning? This woman was satisfied with Him. My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts. My lover is to me a fragrant cluster of henna blossoms from the vineyards of Engedi. How handsome you are, my lover! Oh, how charming! How charming! Is Jesus that to you? Breathe deeply of Him this week. Let's pray. And oh, our Lord Jesus, how we confess that we spend too much time in the stench of the world, we need to escape into the perfumed presence of Jesus. Lord, we need to spend that time knowing your delights, to hear you speak your soft, tender words of love to us, to know that you intend to adorn the beauty that you have given to us with further beauty of your holiness imparted to us. that we might rest and trust Your intentions of love. Lord, that You would work in marriages here in this congregation to rebuild communication that is nourishing rather than destructive, that is filling rather than toxic, that's sweet. Lord, may we be people who know the love of Jesus and find that this week we walk Jesus' fragrance is upon us in the world in which we live. Amen.