That's right. All right, we're in the book of Song of Solomon. So the challenge first tonight is for you to find that book in your Bible. If you didn't bring a Bible, the challenge is gonna be even harder. You might have to get an app on your phone. Make sure you use the King James Version app on there, amen? I got an app that keeps throwing the wrong versions every time I go in the app and I've tried to set it and it keeps going back. It's a liberal app and I need to get a different app, amen? Song of Solomon, it's one of the five poetic books of the Bible. We have Job, it's considered a poetic book in its structure. And you have the Book of Psalms, which is many songs or psalms are put together in that book. The Book of Proverbs and the Book of Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon make five of those poetic books. So we are going to go verse by verse. This is what we call the nickel and dime series. Every book in the Bible that is five to 10 chapters. This one happens to be eight. So we'll go through this verse by verse as the Lord helps us to do. Now this is what is considered by many one of the most puzzling, complicated, challenging books of all the Bible. And it's not because there is hidden prophecy or hidden meaning, which there are hidden things in there, but it has a romantic point of view to it. And there are religious pictures and types or images that we can draw out of it, too. But many, many generations, you know, even though it's not it's a poetic book, it's not about rhyming this word with that word. There's a lot of metaphors and images and and comparisons to things in this book. And because it's romantic, the religious side, the Christianity side, the pastors, people are afraid of this book. I'll say this to you. I'm afraid of this book. I've been kind of praying and really nervous about this. Now, you can make something dirty if your brain is dirty. So you you'll just have to deal with that, amen? But the Bible says marriage is honorable before God and the bed undefiled, which means the sexual relations between a husband and a wife are made by God and it is right and there's nothing defiling about it. So there is a romantic imagery here between Solomon as the king, he's also the bridegroom, He'll be looked at as a shepherd as well in this book. And then he has his bride, and there's a lot of gushy talk in this book. And some of it will be fun because you may want to accept the challenge. Be real careful, though, I mean, you don't want to call your spouse, especially maybe that girlfriend or that wife, you know. You remind me of a horse and chariots. You don't want to do something like that necessarily, but be really careful how you do that. But I'll tell you this, any romantic value in here that is drawn that you can use as a challenge with you as a husband and wife, don't mess around outside of the bonds of marriage. I'll go ahead and take time for this. Biblically, what is fornication? Understand that word forn in the Latin is where we get that word porn from. Pornication, fornication, there's the connection to that thought. That's sex outside of marriage. Any sexual thing you might view outside of marriage and all that comes to that realm. Adultery is when you are married and you commit adultery with another person in a sexual act. And so that is sinful and is wrong. God did not intend for the sexual relations, the romantic, the intimate relationships between a husband and wife to be taboo, to be wrong. It is not wrong. It's wrong when you're not married. And the world has made sexual things dirty. They made them filthy, and they have hijacked those things. And in the realm of doing that, they're empty. There's no fulfillment. They don't understand the value of a husband and wife coming together and two becoming one flesh. They don't understand any pictures or typologies or any of those kind of things. And a true romance that is in that realm It's a blessing from the Lord, and it's supposed to have been that way. So just throw that stuff out there. Now, this book, being with both of those pictures, I will try to do that. It's because of the romantic, intimate wording that, you know, preachers tread softly with this stuff. And I have also in studying this found that a lot of people don't even want to even put their little toe in the water of that pool. And they go to the side where everything's just a type of Jesus in the church, Jesus in the church. Or even Hebrew scholars will go into Israel and the Messiah. Now we're going to look at all those to where the Lord has led me to do that, but we're going to try to have a balance of that in that. because there's a lot of open interpretation for things that can be debated or argued. People like to debate and argue a lot of times. And, you know, some people just argue with a brick wall, and then they'll write a book about it. You know, they just want to argue, and they do. Now, the book of Revelation in the New Testament has a lot of prophecy. It has a lot of hidden things. There's things that some people look at only what we'll call figuratively, and not literal. I believe a lot more of the book of Revelation is literal than we give credit for. And we better be real careful about that. But we'll try to, but there's a lot of figurative things in here that are connected that we'll try to look at as well. Now Solomon is the king here and looked at as the shepherd and the bridegroom. My main goal and desire to look carefully at this religious point of view, the romantic point of view of this book the next several weeks. I hope we can glean some things from it. Maybe the Lord will give you something that I'm not He'll give you something different, but I hope the benefit will be that we will grow in grace and knowledge and that we'll get something from this book. How many of you show of hands, you're not gonna flunk this test, and this is one of those times you're not gonna say, have you ever read your Bible all the way through? I'm just asking, how many of you have ever read the book, A Song of Solomon, before? Some of you might not have ever read it. Okay, and some of you might not have read it. As I said before, some people kind of steer people away from that. Anyhow, in the context of this book, we have Solomon as the king. He's the bridegroom. Then there is a bride in this book. Some think it was Pharaoh's daughter. I'll show you why I don't think that it is, but that's just my opinion. Song of Solomon 613 talks about a Shulamite woman. And so a lot of people believe it might be a Shulamite woman from that area, Shunem and Shulamite connections there to that. And I think that, I believe that's kind of where it is, but anyhow, The focus shows that there is intimacy, there are dialogues, which means it's going back and forth between two people. Some of them are monologues. I remember being in English literature. What a great course that was back in the day. British literature, I remember taking that when I was at Greenville Tech. And I remember the word soliloquy. Y'all ever hear what a soliloquy is? The word solo is in there where someone will just begin to talk to themselves like no one else is there. I almost see that some in this book. But anyhow, whatever's going on here, there's a lot of back and forth. Even the bridesmaids, the virgins that are probably traveling with the bride to go meet her groom, there'll be some times that they'll bring points out here. You gotta be real careful when you flow through the book that you figure out who's talking. Is this the Shulamite woman or is this Solomon talking or is this this one? It takes time to go through this book to study it. And so we have stalled all we can. We preach and taught everybody in the church. Amen. Donnie, Jason, we've tried everybody. I'm just kidding. So it's time for me to preach the book. Amen. So we're going to get on it. With this point of view of Solomon as a husbandman, and the word husband means house band, but there are also a word called husbandman, which means you take care of a vineyard. There are things going on in the garden. There'll be images of that and things connected to that mentioned as well. And all this response and agreement of when they go back and forth, there's just such love going back and forth between the groom and the bride. It's a beautiful, it's supposed to be a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful book. And so I hope we can see that. So let's not delay anymore. Amen. This may not flow chronologically like this, this, and this, and this. There might be some flashbacks. There may be some times where someone will say something that I'll show or try to bring out the thought that maybe they're flashbacking, going back to something that has already happened somewhere. But whatever's going on, the bride has the groom on her mind. And if there's anything we can glean from that, you and I that are saved tonight, we are the bride of Christ, and we need to have the groom, Jesus Christ, on our minds. Amen. In this book, there are sensations. I'm alliterating this. There are sensations, which means there are things connected to touch. There are sounds that will be brought up. Let's see what my next word was. Sights and even smells, aroma. Now when I use the word smell, my brain goes negative to body odor and baby diapers and things like that. So I don't want to use the word smell and ruin the romance. When I use the word smell, I want to replace it. It's illiterate, but I want you to understand There is, we all know, some of you ladies might remember that cologne that that fellow wore, or that might be a perfume that that lady wore. There's a lot of connections of ointments. and perfumes and stuff like that. And, you know, if you don't like romantic stuff, it's just woven all through here. To me, just to preach about Christ in the church only or to look for some kind of messianic Messiah connection to Israel and then tiptoe around all the romance, There's not gonna be much meat on that bone all the time, so I want to cover it all, amen, that we can. So I'm gonna comment on their relationships. I'm gonna comment on their relations at a couple. I'm gonna look at the church angle, the Israelite angle as often as I can. Song of Solomon is a title given to this book. Even with that, did you know that there are people who argue that Solomon wrote the book? Some say Isaiah wrote it. Although Solomon's all over it. It's written a lot like Ecclesiastes is. And they'll just try to, and of course there are modern people today that they'll write a book on why they believe the Song of Solomon was written by Isaiah. And there's not that much evidence to me. And I've trusted early church fathers. I trust the canon, what we call the canon of scriptures. The 66 books are the 66 books that we're supposed to have. God said, put this Song of Solomon in here. So I'm going to preach it, amen? I'm going to preach it. So the Song of Songs, verse number one, which is Solomon's. So it's interesting how they'd argue he didn't write it, but anyhow, you know, there's some stubborn people in the world. Now what does the Song of Songs mean? Anybody ever read it in a Bible, an older Bible that calls it canticles? Anybody ever saw that before, canticles? Some old Bibles out there that have it. Canticles means a little song or a song as well. It is the best song or best poem of all the songs. The Bible teaches us, let me find my note here real quick. 1 Kings 4.32, this is according to the Bible. Solomon the king in his lifetime, he spake 3000 Proverbs. Now I talk a lot, don't say amen right there. I talk a lot, but to say that I have thrown out such wisdom as 3000 Proverbs, I dare say maybe three or four times maybe in my life, I've said something profound and proverbial. Most of the time it's silly and stupid and dumb and rememberable because of that. But Solomon has 3,000 Proverbs. That's besides the one in the book of Proverbs. That's a lot. And the Bible says in 1 Kings 4.32, it also says, and his songs, S-O-N-G-S, were a thousand and five. He wrote a thousand and five songs. That's a lot of writing. That's a lot of meditating and thinking. And so one of those songs must be the Song of Solomon as a poetic book, eight chapters. And what he means by opening in verse one, it is the best of the best in his opinion. And he wanted his name connected to it. And he wanted us to see the beauty between the relationship of the bride and the groom. So the best of all the songs that he wrote, he looked at this one as that one. And so we'll get into that tonight. So that line one kind of gets us through our introductions. That was amazing. That got our introduction, took a little while. So verse two through six, we're gonna see Solomon's bride speaking here in these verses. Now, I don't know how far we'll get. but we'll do our best to do that. Now, I want you to understand, I've already mentioned to you that some believe this bride was Pharaoh's daughter. One of the reasons of that is because Solomon married one of Pharaoh's daughters. Now, I think you'd all agree with me, Pharaoh's pretty high up the ladder when it comes to empires. And the relationship there to have a daughter, she would probably be a pretty well-off person in the family, right? Pharaoh's daughter would probably be a pretty important person. Okay, now we also know that Solomon had 300 wives in his entire lifetime. 299 too many. Amen. You know what I'm saying? You don't like your wife? No, I'm just saying, you've heard him read and talk about it'd be better for him to be on the housetop by himself and then dwell in a house with a brawling woman. Well, one of them 300 wives, plus he had 700 concubines that he had relationships with. Now this book, to me, speaks of the very first one he ever, the one that first attraction, or that powerful attraction, that love that was the greatest of all that he'd had, and he wrote about it in this book. And I believe it was probably his first, but it, because it's just so much images really, and so much time devoted to it. But I know later on down the line, he did stray away from the Lord. He began to make alliances, political alliances with other kingdoms, such as Pharaoh's daughter. And he began to worship false gods in false temples. And it caused his heart to stray away from the Lord. And even the Lord told him that that would happen to them. So in this book, I want to be reminded that he had one very special love in his life before he drifted away. these verses two through six that we'll get into here is when the bride is talking. Now in studying this, I may be wrong and if I keep going through this book and I feel I've made a bad decision in what I've said to you, I will recant. I will apologize. I will tell you, hey, you know what? I think I'm kind of going in the wrong direction. But nobody knows who this woman is. But in chapter six, let me find it real quick, verse 13, it says, return, return, O Shulamite, return, return, that we may look upon thee, what will you see in a Shulamite, as it were the company of two armies. Why are you looking? Why did you take a second glance at this? Why is this woman getting your attention? Well, this woman really captivated Solomon. and he's in love with her, and this is described. Now, here's what I think went down, and I'll preach it through here as we go. I believe he met her, and I believe they might have, because of the, the Bible does not put a stamp of approval on wicked, ungodly things. When he says this is wrong, he's not somewhere else. Now, obviously, he had a lot of bad relationships and decisions that he made. But these pictures here of the relationship in the bedchamber and these things going on, the intimacy, the romance between them two, I believe they were already married. Now I believe they met each other, got married, and then he had to travel back And here she is with her virgin maiden assistants, whoever they are, whether he gave them to go back with her because he was traveling and had to travel back to the kingdom, but she is anticipating getting to see him again because she hadn't gotten over the last time she saw him. So verse number two, maybe picture her riding in this chariot and not far away. No, hey, we're not far from Jerusalem here. Let me kiss, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Now, some of y'all have already lost it. Y'all are like... Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine. And this word wine is connected to the celebration that she's anticipating. There's going to be a big celebration here. And the whole celebration is about them coming together again. But she's trying to portray to us I'm more excited about him than I am the celebration. You all know some people would rather go to the party. They don't care if it's Christmas. They don't care whose birthday it is. They don't care what's going on. They're just there for the beer or the wine or the food. They're about the celebrating factor or whatever. Or they are about forgetting who they are factor. But she hasn't forgotten. She cannot wait to see the groom again. Amen. And let him kiss me, Shonk of Thears, just thinking and maybe talking to these maidens as he's traveling. And this is pretty much saying, I can't wait till he kisses me on my mouth. Amen. and there's nothing wrong with a married couple kissing each other. There's nothing wrong with a married couple having sexual relations with each other and all those things that come with that. Verse number three, because of the savor of thy good ointments, thy name is as an ointment poured forth. Therefore do the virgins love thee. See, an ointment may have slicked his hair back real good, right? Maybe he's got some smelly stuff on him. She says, man, I can't get that. I can't disconnect that. I remember what he looked like. I remember the smell. I remember all those things. They just cannot be separated, all that. And his name, when somebody would even say, hey, we're going to see King Solomon, she could smell Chanel number 10. I had no idea. I don't even know what I'm talking about with some of these clones. It's been so long since I've worn any, amen. Sister Janet, all the problems she's had, I've quit wearing anything that smells halfway decent because I don't want her to have some kind of problem. So I probably smell like a sweaty old sock most of the time, I have no idea. But I know when it comes to her, now think about this. Some of y'all are blushing and y'all acting kind of silly, some of you are. But if I were to say some kind of cologne, And you remember, and I don't want to start any kind of division, but maybe you have somebody else you're thinking about when you smell these, think about that cologne. But you ought to connect to that. The true love be the one you are with, amen? And the one you long to be with. But because of the savor of thy good ointments, thy name is as an ointment. If you could say your husband or wife's name, and some of you I know lost your husband and wife, I know that. But you could say the name, you might think about something that he used to wear, or some kind of cologne that he wore, or she wore a perfume, or something about them that connects and represents who they were, an image in your mind. This bride loves this groom. and even the smells and things like that, they connect together. And she said, because of the savior of thy good ointments, thy name is as an ointment poured forth. And then she says, therefore, do the virgins love thee, even the maidens that are riding with her, even other maidens that saw him, or if when they smell that smell, they can't get over him either, amen. It's almost silly, isn't it? Some of y'all remember the days when people went nuts over people like Elvis and some of that stuff. They'd faint and carry on. Y'all remember all that. But it ought to be that we would be so enamored, so much in love with the one we're with. that this would be the way we would love each other and treat each other. And here she's even acknowledging and mentioning that even her maidens are excited as they're riding, possibly in the chariot on the way to see Solomon, and they're probably picking on her, saying, you're blushing, you're excited. I can't wait to see my man, amen. Well, if we could just remember our first love as a Christian. I remember the day I first got saved. It was May the 15th, 1989. I've said it so much, y'all know when I met Him. Thank God. I remember that night I met my Savior. Amen. Now I don't know necessarily what the aroma was like in the room, but I do, I remember I was under conviction, and I was most all these things here didn't have a lot of self-esteem, and I didn't have a whole lot of hope, and I met my Savior and met my Master, and He became altogether lovely to me. And I can't wait to see him. Can you imagine getting to heaven and saying, there he is, sitting on the throne. There's the emerald rainbow around that throne. Seraphim's flying around, trying to help a brother out, saying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which is and is to come. What an adoration we could draw from this. If we could just remember our first love of our Savior, Jesus Christ, kind of like this, I believe it would draw us near. As the Bible says, that if you draw an eye to God, he'll draw an eye to you. I remember a deacon at Galilee Baptist Church, Brother Mike Taylor, told us a little story. This was him. I've heard this picture and analogy, and other people have told it, but he told it. I don't know if he's the one that made it up, but he was driving down the road in his 1980-something Chevy pickup truck, and he got married late in life, in his late 30s and 40s. First time he'd ever been married, first time sister Gail had ever been married, and they were dating, boy, and it was like, hey, she likes me, I like her. It was like peanut butter and jelly. Man, you couldn't separate them. And when they ride down the road, boy, she scooch up there right next to him, boy, everywhere they went driving down the road. So that first love, that's what it's like. We lose that spiritually at times, don't we? We lose it. Well, they got married and a few years went down the line and she began to scooch over to the other side of the truck. And one day they were going down the road and Brother Mike looked over at her and she looked over at him and she said, we don't sit close together anymore. He said, well, I didn't move. He was driving the same way, driving behind the same steering wheel. She's the scooter, she scooted over. I've seen myself scoot away from the Lord many times, scoot away from my first love many times. Verse number 4, she says, draw me. Hey man, I want all these things to draw me, draw my attention to you. We will run after them. And no wonder people can see the spiritual imagery here. But I think if you don't focus on the romantic side, the religious part won't be as good. I believe God said, this is how I want this book written. I want Solomon to ride it, and I don't want him to be ashamed of it, and I want it to be expounded in this manner. I pray God will draw me closer to the Lord. I hope I run after him like I'm... Listen, I remember when I first started dating Joanna, she lived in Anderson and I didn't. And I remember working in Greenville. It's so crazy nowadays. Everybody's so connected digitally and all that. And I don't know. But we didn't have cell phones and all that stuff back then. And I'd have to call from work, or either we just had to make plans on the phone call we made the night before and somehow hope we could figure it all out. And we'd not be late, and she might not be there. Nowadays, nobody could do that, could they? Well, you didn't text me. I didn't know what to do. Well, I'd drive down there and well, I would. I'll tell you, this is crazy. There were times I didn't have time to go home to change clothes and I'd find other places to change my clothes. On the way down there. And I'd go pick her up and we'd go out to eat. We could go out to eat. It didn't matter what we ate, just so I could be in her company. Just so I could be with her. Some of y'all know what I'm talking about. That's the way the Lord wants our relationship to be with him. I just want to be in his company. I just want to fellowship with him. I just want to be around. And what's the main food source at the dinner plate that the Lord wants us to have? It's the word of God. Draw nigh to God and he'll draw nigh to you. She says, draw me, we will run after thee. The king, I guess she means her and the maidens, they all gonna take us, they gonna bust up out of there and run down the street. Crazy, why you act so crazy? Because she's in love. If you fall in love with the Lord Jesus Christ, you might act a little crazy. You might get a little embarrassed in your flesh. You may stand up and say, I got a praise. You may say, no, I think I need to sing a song. It might not be the song of songs, but it's my song. The draw me, we will run after thee. The King has brought me into his chambers. We will be glad and rejoice in thee. We will remember thy love more than wine, as I mentioned before. She said, I'm gonna remember him. It's gonna be about him. It's not about the celebration or all the things that supposedly make a celebration. It's all about him. And then she even says in verse four at the end, the upright love thee. Everybody that knows him, that does right and walks right, they know him like this. They know who he is and they even love him. But what is even greater, this is a more intimate relationship brought out of the bride and the groom here in these verses. Now, it's eight o'clock somewhere. Amen. 801. Let's see if we can get the last two verses and actually accomplish what I'd hoped to accomplish. She says, as this Shulamite woman, I am black but comely. O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kadar, as the curtains of Solomon, look not upon me, because I am black, look at this, because the sun hath looked upon me. So she's dark-skinned, however black, we don't know, but she's also attributing the fact that she's been out in the sun and gotten very dark because of that. And she looks at that as she's embarrassed. She's modest of her appearance, and she's got a little bit of a low self-esteem. And in these verses, it's the reason I don't believe it was Pharaoh's daughter, because it says, the sun hath looked upon me. My mother's children were angry with me. They made me the keeper of the vineyards. They made her work outside in the vineyards. That doesn't sound like Pharaoh's daughter to me. just my opinion. And then she says, but my own vineyard have I not kept. In other words, she wasn't able to take care of her own. She felt like she had let herself go. She was not able to take care of herself like she wanted to because she was doing that kind of work that she was doing. So I thought that was kind of interesting, you know, this reference of being out in the sun and keeping other people's vineyards and doing all this other work. And somehow I've not been able to keep up and I just don't feel like I'm good enough for him. I don't feel like, you know, you ever felt that way, you're not good enough for somebody. And I believe that's why it's not the Pharaoh's daughter, because this lady's from a different caliber. This is a different country. This is a different culture that she's from. And then Solomon speaks out. Look at verse seven. Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest. Excuse me, I'm sorry. I'm getting ahead of myself. Solomon's bride still speaking. I'm ahead of myself. I'm trying to hurry too fast. She's still talking and she says, Somebody tell me of whom my soul loveth where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon. For why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? So here she's throwing out a little angle of looking at him like a shepherd in the field. She speaks of him like a shepherd longing to know where she can find all that she needs in him, like a sheep would find all the care in the shepherd and find food and rest. And even the thought about the word noon here, the hottest part of the day from the heat and the hottest part that she could find rest. And then she talks about here at the end of that verse, for why should I be as one that turns aside by the flocks of thy companions? Because she shouldn't, she's not one who does not know who he is and does not know where to find him. And she'd never wander around and turn away and go after anybody else. This reminded me of so many places and I'll try to hurry. John 10 four, when he put forth his own sheep, He goeth before them. We're talking about the shepherd now. I'm not making this up. And the sheep follow him. for they know his voice. Amen. You think she knew the voice of Solomon? Sure she did. I know the voice of my savior when he speaks in that still small voice. He spoke to me in songs and hymns and spiritual songs. This very night he has spoken to me and it has drawn me closer to him and I love him more for being here tonight than when I got here. John 10, five, a stranger they will not follow, but will flee from him for they know not the voice of strangers. John 10, 14, Jesus is saying here, I am the good shepherd and know my sheep. and I'm known of mine. John 10, 27. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And listen, I know this is way ahead, but this made me want to jump to Song of Solomon, chapter 2, verse 16. My beloved is mine, and I am his. He feedeth among the lilies. You ever heard anybody say, I am his and he is mine? There's all kinds of songs written about that. That's what I get from these verses. that he is mine and I am his. I have to mention all this gushy talk, you know, going back and forth. I can't blame it all on her because in the next verse, he's going to get cranked up a little bit. And you'll have to wait till next Wednesday for that. We don't have time for that. But it just shows the use of their context of what we're looking at in this book. They would use surroundings in their life, part of their culture. She'd use the image of a shepherd and the sheep and the fields and the lilies of the valley, the bright morning star. All these things go back and forth between them of their romance and their description of each other and their love for one another. And it almost feels like after she went through all these things, when he gets ready to start talking, it's almost like they almost compete with each other. Have you ever done that when you're in your little love chat and talk? I know some of you are not talking to some of you, but I am talking to some of you. And so you can glean from that. Maybe you even remember back in the day when it was there and you had it. Those should be blessed days, even if they're gone by you've lost your loved one or maybe there's been a separation in your family, a divorce. But the devotion of those who want to be in each other's company This romantic stuff is okay, it's all right, there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, it's probably why there's so many divorces and so many people do not stay together. Because some of you that are not married, if all you're doing is chasing the physical things of the body, it will run its course. But if you've got some real coals burning underneath the fire, amen, it can set things ablaze again. So this talk romantically, all this stuff going back and forth, it's funny. And it's real comical sometimes because when we read it, we go, what in the world is he talking about? And there comes the challenge of trying to dig a little deeper, look a little harder, think a little bit harder, what are they talking about? And that's where we start opening up the treasure of the word of God. And maybe that might not be a blessing to you, but that's what feeds my soul. when I start doing that and then as I say, oh, there's some things there that I can apply that will help my relationship with my wife and then I find something that helps my relationship with my Savior. There's no book like it in all the Bible. And the devil has robbed the church of this to where we don't see these things that can provide multiple benefits in our wellbeing as believers. So anyhow, we'll pick up with verse number eight and head on down the line there as the Lord permits, but that's where we'll get tonight. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you, Lord, for the treasure of the scriptures. Lord, thank you for allowing us to have this book, Lord, and what it was intended for it to be to us as a believer, as the church. I pray you'll give us wisdom, Lord, as we try to preach and teach through this book. Help us, Lord, to grow in grace and knowledge. Help us to draw closer to one another and draw closer to you. In Jesus' name we pray.