Song of Solomon 5-8

Song of Solomon chapters 5 through 8. Congratulations. We are on the very last day of 2021 and we are finishing the wisdom literature. You have to come back on Monday to find out what we're doing in 2022. I'm excited about them. So we are at Song of Solomon chapters 5 through 8. Again, I want to read you again what a commentator said about this passage. He says, remain sensitive to the language of imagery and attempt it to follow its contours without imposing too much demands on specifics of interpretation. I think this is extremely helpful advice as we work through these last four chapters of the book of Song of Solomon.
I meant to get on here yesterday, but just as I was about to get on, I got news that I needed to go to the hospital and visit someone who is in distress. So I didn't get to spend time with you. I spent lots of time in the Word studying and thinking and praying before I got on here with you and just before the Lord called me away. So we get to spend some time together today, which means we'll move through more quickly, but I still hope that you'll find it valuable.
Let's go ahead and have some coffee. We'll pray and we'll get into God's Word. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the love that you have for your bride. We thank you that you have given us a perfect groom, Jesus Christ. We pray now that as we read your word, that you would care for us. We pray that you would watch over us and that we would follow in your paths.
In Jesus's name, amen. All right, here we go. Song of Solomon, chapter five through chapter eight. I have come to my garden, my sister, my spouse. I have gathered my myrrh with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey. I have drunk my wine with milk. Christ says here that he's coming to his garden. that he's here and he has drunk wine and he has honey on his lips. He's the one who is ready to fellowship, to have communion with his bride.
Again, we're going to take a step back just for a second, and I'm going to say that especially as we get into some of these chapters, I'm one of the people that holds this hard place where I don't think that this is only literal, nor do I think that this is only allegorical, but I think the base level No Matter What is a literal love poem. No, but it's a poem. It's not meant to be literally read. It is a genre of poetry and of wisdom, so we should read it that way.
But I think it's also speaking of the perfect picture that we have of Jesus Christ loving his church. So here I have written on my comments here, Christ ate fish and honey when he came to dine with his disciples after the resurrection and he's deeply satisfied in his bride. Matthew Henry wrote, those that throw open their souls to Jesus Christ shall find him ready to come into them. And then in verse one, eat, oh friends, drink, yes, drink deeply, oh beloved ones.
Do you drink deeply of the well? When Jesus came to that Samaritan woman and he told her that he would give her water and that she would never thirst again, he was talking about himself. He was that living water who's there in front of her. Do you drink deeply?
Verse 2 and following, I sleep but my heart is awake. It is the voice of my beloved. He knocks saying, open for me my sister, my love, my dove, my perfect one. For my head is covered with dew, my locks with the drops of night. The groom comes to her and he knocks at the door. He comes to her and he knocks and he's waiting for her to open the door. And how does he perceive her? How does he think of her? She's beautiful to him. She's perfect to him. She's a sister, his love, his dove. He's there knocking at the door.
This is Revelation 3.20.
I am convinced that when John picks up this language in Revelation 3.20, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with me."
I think this is the language he's picking up here. And this is this beautiful thing, Matthew Henry again. Matthew Henry's really great on the Song of Solomon. And here he says this, this section is applicable to churches and believers who by their carelessness and security provoke Christ to withdraw from them. Why does he say that? Well, it's what comes up in the next section.
Look at me at verses 3 through 4. I have taken off my robe. How can I put it on again? I have washed my feet. How can I defile them? My beloved put his hand by the lat to the door, and my heart yearned for him. I arose to open from my bed for my beloved, and my hands dripped with myrrh, my fingers with liquid myrrh, on the handles of the locks. There's this burning love that Jesus Christ has for his church that we see here in the beloved going and knocking at the door and wanting to have this intimacy with his bride. But she withholds. She withholds for some reason, right? She has a litany of reasons for it.
Well, I've already gotten to bed. I've already washed my feet. I've already, you know, you might say she's already put her curlers in her hair and she's already gotten tucked in and snuggled into bed. And it's this reality that She has reasons why she loves him. She says here at the end, you know, she's got all these reasons in verse three. And then in verse four, my beloved put his hand by the latch of the door and my heart yearned for him. I rose to open for my beloved. She goes and she finally does open the door. How many of us do that though?
When it comes to our relationship with Jesus Christ, how often do we grow cold in our heart? We just put away our relationship with Jesus. We have excuses for a time for why we shouldn't read our Bible or why we shouldn't be praying or why we shouldn't be communing with him. And we just hold off for some reason. We don't know why we love him. We want to enjoy sweet fellowship with God, and yet we find ourselves Just having excuses. It's this carelessness of our hearts. Again, Matthew Henry says, frivolous excuses are the language of prevailing slothfulness in religion. Christ calls us to open to him, but we pretend to have no mind. Or we have no strength, or we have no time, and therefore we think that we may be excused.
But what does she find when her heart is finally aroused? What does the lover of this beloved find when she goes and she finally opens the door? Verse six, I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had turned away and was gone. My heart, my heart leaped up when he spoke. I saw him, but I could not find him. I called him, but he gave me no answer.
I want to read to you, this is not scripture, but it is what I think is a faithful representation or summary of the scriptures. The Westminster Confession of Faith has a paragraph in chapter five on God's providence. And I want you to just hear this for a second. The most wise, righteous, and gracious God doth oftentimes leave for a season his own children to manifold temptations, and to the corruptions of their own hearts, to chastise them for their former sins, or to discover upon them the hidden strength of corruption and deceitfulness of their hearts, that they may be humbled. and to raise them to a more close and constant dependence for their support upon him and to make them more watchful against all future occasions of sin and for sundry other just and holy ends." What is this saying?
There are times in our lives where for some reason we've held off from the Lord. He's knocked and we've gone cold. And he backs off. And this isn't saying, you know, that you lose your salvation, but he leaves us to our own devices. Now we might see the corruptness that's left in us. This is what she finds in her heart when she realizes, what am I doing? Why am I not going?
He's unlocked the door. He's made everything possible. And she goes to the door, but he's not there. She doesn't stop. She doesn't just go, well, maybe he'll come back, but she goes and she pursues him. This is what God does for us. And what does it say in verse seven?
The watchman who went out about the city found me. They struck me. They wounded me. The keepers of the walls, they took my veil away from me. This is cruel and barbarous things that the keepers of the town do. The guardians of the, this is like the policeman of the town.
She looks like a, a woman of the night, trying to find her beloved, and they don't treat her well for it. But she's not supposed to be out at this time. It's not the right season for her to be there. She's taken as lewd and cruel. And this is a similar way where Hannah finds herself, isn't it?
When she's in the temple and Eli thinks she's drunk because she's praying to God in her anguish. Oftentimes when we long for God and we're praying to Him and we're seeking Him out, people don't like it. They might even think it's not the right place, not the right time. In verse 8, I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am lovesick. She cries out to the daughters of Jerusalem. She cries out to the people. Tell my beloved I'm lovesick.
I still love him. I still miss him. Where is he? Do you feel like Christ has been far from you? Go tell the people in the church. Ask him to go to Christ and to intercede for you. To say, hold on, my sister, Lord, my sister loves you. Go back to her. Father, give her that sweet communion once again. Feel free to shoot me an email or a text message and I'll go to the Lord and I'll be one of those daughters of Jerusalem. God, please. She loves you. He loves you. He wants communion with you.
Verse 9, what is your beloved more than any other beloved, O fairest among women? What is your beloved more than another beloved that you charge us? Right? The daughters of Jerusalem, they say, hold on here, right? What are you talking about that your dude is one of a kind? Why would we go do this? Yeah, sure, you're the most beautiful of women, but why should we? Why should we go do this for you?
Well, then she breaks out into one of these love poems describing her beloved. And this is the, there's one, two, three, four of these throughout the book of the Song of Solomon. This is the only one that actually describes the King Solomon. The rest of them describe his beloved. Here she speaks about her lover, her beloved.
My beloved is white and ruddy, chief among ten thousands, his head is like the finest gold, his locks are wavy and black as a raven. His eyes are like doves by the rivers of waters washed with milk and fitly set. His cheeks are like a bed of spices, banks of scented herbs. His lips are lilies dripping liquid myrrh. His hands are rods of gold set with beryl. His body is carved ivory and laid with sapphires. His legs are pillars of marble set on bases of fine gold. His countenance is like Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.
His mouth is most sweet. Yes, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved. This is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem." She answers back, and she talks about her beloved, and she admires him. She adores him. She pays attention to his contours and who he is, and she is enamored with him.
This is one of the beautiful things of how a husband and wife think about one another and care for one another. But when we think about this, this is where I want to be a little bit careful. I really do think that this is talking about a bride and a groom. And so the literal imagery or the couple is real. The imagery is real. She really is thinking about somebody that she actually loves, a physical person. And sometimes some commentators have gone too far and talked about Christ and allegorize it so much that they want to look at every detail.
I'm not going to do that with all of this, especially when it comes to this one, right? Because what does the book of Isaiah tell us that Jesus Christ came not with any form or comeliness that we should look upon him. He came as a normal dude. He wasn't Fabio. He wasn't some guy on the front of GQ magazine or whatever other magazine, but he was just a normal guy.
But when we think about Christ, we think about His perfect attributes. We think about His kindness. We think about His love. We think about His gentleness. We think about his strength and his honor and his righteousness and his zeal. We can think about the attributes of Christ and we could go on for days about how beautiful and wonderful Christ is to us. Every word of scripture is given to us to teach us something about Christ. But notice here, I love this at the end of verse 16. Yes, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.
Do you think this way of your husband? Is he your beloved? Is he your friend? Maybe you need to restoke your heart of love for your husband. Maybe you need to restoke your heart of love that that fire might burn in your heart for Christ. Is Christ your friend? Can you go to him? Can you pray to him? Can you think about him? Chapter 6.
Where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with you? Okay, where is this dude? Where is he? We'll go with you. Just tell us where he's at. Isn't this what Philip does? When he hears about Christ, he goes and he gets his brother Andrew. Isn't this the whole point of evangelism? Tell us where he is and we'll bring everyone with you.
I'm always amazed. I love this about when new believers come to Christ. They're some of the most zealous people in evangelism. They love to go and tell other people about Jesus Christ. Why? Because their heart has been, the fire in their heart has been stoked up and they love Jesus and they want to tell other people about Jesus. They want to bring people to church with them.
And this is a flame that I often see start to dim down in people's hearts. And I love to see it re-stoked back up. Let's go ahead and look at verses two and three of chapter six. My beloved has gone to his garden. to the beds of spices, to feed his flocks in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved and my beloved is mine. He feeds his flock among the lilies.
He's not in the city. He's not in the hustle and bustle. But where is she remembers? Oh, yeah, I know where my beloved would go. She's been abused by those men who would walk about in the streets at night and and be trying to keep watch over the city and have taken her cloak. But she remembers where he is now. He's not in the city. He's in the garden. He's there in the quiet. Isn't this where we find Christ so often, even on the last night where he was betrayed, in a garden praying to his father.
And she knows where to find him. But notice as well what she says, I am my beloved and my beloved is mine. Even in the light of the distress that she has seen where he has withdrawn himself, she knows where to go to find him. It's not a mystery to her. She remembers where he is.
Maybe you have found yourself separated from Christ, feeling isolated from His love. Remember where you can find Him. Go to His Word. Go to Him in prayer. He has not departed so far from you that you cannot find Him again. But she has assurance in her heart she is still His beloved, and He is still hers. Let's go ahead and look at verses 4 and following.
O my love, you are as beautiful as Terza, lovely as Jerusalem, awesome as an army with banners. Turn your eyes away from me, for they have overcome me. Your hair is like a flock of goats going down from Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep. which have come up from the washing. Every one bears twins, and none is barren among them, like a piece of pomegranate are your temples behind your veil.
There are 60 queens and 80 concubines and virgins without number. My dove, my perfect one, is the only one. The only one of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The daughters saw her and called her blessed. The queens and the concubines, and they praised her.
When she goes and she remembers where he is and she finds him, what is he thinking about? He's thinking about her. Even though he's gone away from her, his mind has stayed upon her. Jesus Christ might be in heaven, but he is still thinking about his bride upon the earth. He still loves his bride. He still loves the church. He still cares for her and is thoughtful of her. Men, when you're away from your bride, are you thoughtful of her? Do you think upon her? Do you wish to see her again?
Notice what I love this in verse 9, my dove, my perfect one is the only one. This is one of the reasons why in the qualifications for an elder, an elder must be a one woman man. Jesus Christ is a one woman man. He loves his church. She's his bride. He loves her alone. Here in the Song of Solomon, I love this, my dove, my perfect one is the only one. Do you love one? Men, do you love your bride? Is your heart for her alone? If you love your bride, that's a picture. It's meant to be this beautiful picture of how Christ loves his church.
Who is she who looks forth as the morning? Verse 10. Fair as the moon, clear as the sun, awesome as an army with banners. This idea of clear as the sun, John picks this up in Revelation 12.1 when he talks about Christ clothing the church with the sun. Jesus has made his bride beautiful and clean, as fresh as the morning. And it is Christ, in verse 10, it says, awesome as the army with banners. It is Christ and his covenant that are the insignia on the banner that waves above the church as the church militant. in verse 11 and 12.
I went down to the garden, this is the bride speaking again, I went down to the garden of nuts to see the verdure of the valley, to see whether the vine had budded and the pomegranates had bloomed before I was even aware my soul had made, sorry, before I was even aware my soul had made me as a chariots of my noble people. This is this idea that the groom has spoken to her and she's gone down and she's found this luscious garden filled with fruits that Christ has provided for her, that her husband has given her. And she's there and it's, my soul has made me as the chariots of my noble people, Christ has made us full heirs of the covenant of the promise. He's made us children of the king, princes and princesses of the kingdom, nobles amongst the mighty ones.
Return, O Shulamite. Interestingly here, this is where we actually, the beloved Shulamite is this idea of possibly the perfect one or the unblemished one, the one without a spot or possibly even the peaceable one. And this is the Shulamite is the beloved. This is the bride.
Return, return, that we may look upon you. What should we see in the Shulamite as it were the dance of two camps? The groom is Christ and his church longs to see its members return to him and enjoy the blessing of having that singular focus upon Christ. The church asked the groom what you would see in me. When we realize that we're the bride of Christ, we look and we can say, hold on here. What should you see in the Shulamite?
Why would you look upon us? God, I am sinful through and through, and yet you're this kind to me? How? Why? Even though there's this constant warfare in verse 13, as it were, the dance of the two camps, this constant warfare in me between the corruption of the flesh and the grace that you've poured out of my heart, God, you would still look upon me? You would still love me? And then verse chapter seven, how beautiful are your feet in sandals. Again, so the beloved is saying, how could you look upon me this way? And Christ has something to say, the groom has something to say to her here. How beautiful are your feet in the sandals, oh prince's daughter.
The curves of your thighs are like jewels. the works of your hands, of a skillful workman. Your navel is a rounded goblet, it lacks no blended beverage. Your waist is a heap of wheat set about with lilies. Your two breasts are like two fawns, twins of a gazelle.
Your neck is like an ivory tower, your eyes like the pools in Heshbon by the gate of Beth Rabim. Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon, which looks toward Damascus. Your head crowns you like Mount Carmel, and the hair of your head is like purple. A king is held captive by your tresses.
How beautiful and how pleasant you are, oh love, with your delights. This stature of yours is like a palm tree and your breasts like its clusters. I said I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of its branches. Now let your breasts be like clusters of vine, the fragrance of your breath like apples, and the roof of your mouth like the best wine.
This is why I'm saying I think this is really a love poem. It really is a love poem. It reminds me of what the writer of Proverbs chapter 30, verses 18 and 19 says. He says, three things are too wonderful for me, yes, four which I know not. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent on a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a young man with a maiden. This is a beautiful picture of this romantic love that's happening between these two people. full, beautiful satisfaction. This is one of the things I want to say here as well.
Just because I think that this is ultimately speaking of Christ and the church, that doesn't mean that somehow the sexual relationship between a husband and a wife is, you know, dirty or obscene or that God doesn't take pleasure in it. No, this is, you read this beautiful imagery here and it's clear that within this confines of marriage, God finds it as beautiful. He's made our bodies to be appreciated and to be enjoyed by each other in that one man, one woman relationship with each other.
I got to turn off this alarm, I'm sorry. Speaking of that alarm every day at 3 30 my alarm goes off and it says love your family tells me to wrap up my work So I'm gonna keep going on here verse verse 9 through 13 continues the wine goes down smoothly for my beloved moving gently the lips of Sleepers I am my beloved and his desire is toward me On a human level I want to ask you men Does your wife know that your desire is for her and for her alone? Is your heart devoted to your wife? Could she say, my husband loves me and loves me alone?
That's what this points us to with Christ. After all the words that she knows in her soul that she is loved, not just intellectually, it's not just that her husband tells her he loves her, but experientially. Do you know, have you tasted and seen that the Lord is good, and know that he loves you in an experiential way, that he has cared for you and all of his plans for you are to prosper you?
Come, my beloved, let us go forth to the field, let us lodge in the villages, let us wake up, get up early into the vineyards, let us see the vine, if the vine has budded, whether the grape blossoms are open and the pomegranates are in bloom, there I will give you my love, the mandrakes off a fragrance. And at our gates are pleasant fruits, all manner, new and old, which I have laid up for you, my beloved. The lovers go, and they go out, and they have this retreat, and they care for one another. They go into the beautiful scenery of the gardens that are teeming with fruit, and there they enjoy each other.
Christ has something to say about fruit, didn't he? If you abide in me and I abide in you, you will bear much good fruit. Do you enjoy communion with Jesus Christ? Do you go to him and love him? Do you spend time going and meeting him in the quiet of the garden early in the morning while it's still dark? And do you spend time with your Lord? Let's go ahead, I'm going to have a little bit of coffee, a little top up here, and we'll finish the very last chapter of the Wisdom Literature, Song of Solomon, Chapter 8. Here we go, the last chapter.
Oh, that you were like my brother who nursed at my mother's breasts. If I should find you outside, I would kiss you. I would not be despised. I would lead you and bring you into the house of my mother, she who used to instruct me. I would cause you to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate.
Some people think that this is her going back to a time that, you know, before they were married and thinking, oh, I wish I wish that you were raised in my house so you could be my best friend and and that you and I could just spend all day together. We could enjoy all the sweetness of this life. And I wish I wish that all the previous years I spent growing up, I wish I had spent them with you. I wish that we had that type of close companionship.
And then a refrain comes back from chapter 2 where she says, And then verse 5, Who is this coming up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved? I awakened you under the apple tree. There your mother brought you forth. There she who bore you brought you forth. This is this idea, remember that in chapter two, her beloved was compared to an apple tree found in a forest, this cultivated tree, and she says, there, I found you and I woke you up. There, I found you and I made you love me.
And there she says that who is coming up from the wilderness, many commentators who are of old, by the way, the allegorical interpretation is the oldest interpretation in the books. literally been around since the first centuries of the church. And many of the people couldn't help but see this as an allegory for the Old Testament church coming out of the wilderness and leaning upon God as her husband. And here Christ is adored and the church is seen with a smile by the crowd.
Well, let's go ahead and read verse 6. Verses 6 and 7 are beautiful verses. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death. I'm going to read that again. For love is as strong as death, a jealousy as cruel as a grave, its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, Nor can the floods drown it out. If a man would give for love All the wealth of his house, It would be despised utterly.
When I think of these words of love being a burning fire, this is one of the reasons why you don't want to kindle love before it's ready to be awakened. This is one of the reasons why we have to tell our young people, hey, chill out, chill out, right? You're not ready to wrestle with these emotions and the implications of these emotions yet. They're good emotions, but hold on, because once that flame is fanned, it's hard to put water on it.
And so here, if your desires, the desire of this person, of this love is saying, I want to be pressed upon your heart, I want to be a seal upon your arm, I want to be close to you, I want to be imprinted upon you. And indeed, this is what we desire of Christ, isn't it? We don't want Him to ever forget us. We don't want Him to leave us nor forsake us, but we want Him to care for us. He has sealed us with His Holy Spirit, Ephesians chapter 1. But we want to also be sealed upon Him. We want our mark to be upon Him, and indeed it has been. Isn't this what the book of Romans chapter 8 tells us?
For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any created thing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. If you are in Christ, you have been pressed upon his heart, and he never forgets you, for his love for you is a burning fire. It can never be quenched. It can never be doled out. And it can never be bought either. Did you catch that? Did you see that at chapter 7?
If a man could give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised. You can't buy the love of Jesus Christ. That's the point of what Simon found out in the book of Acts when he tried to buy the gifts of the Holy Spirit. You can't do it. You can't buy the love of God. You can't buy the apostleship. You can't do those things because even if you did, it would just become a cheap trinket.
But it's part of who we are as being the beloved of Jesus Christ. He has chosen us. This is why the idea of prostitution and stuff like that is so wrong. No, it's a perversion, a distortion of what's beautiful, that you can't buy love. But true love can never be quenched. It can never be put out, no matter how much water is poured on it.
This is the love that's supposed to be shown in the marriage. This is why Jesus says that there's only one reason for divorce. If you commit sexual immorality. That's what this whole picture was meant to be, is that this beautiful image of a husband and a wife coming together and loving each other in the most intimate way is this picture of Jesus's love for his people. And this is why there's not supposed to be divorce rampant in our nation.
No fault divorces and things like that, especially in the church, is a black mark, a mar on the gospel of Jesus Christ because he loves his people. He loves his people with an unquenchable love. Husbands love your wives as Christ loves the church. This is the beautiful picture that the Song of Solomon gives us. And it finishes with these words.
This reality of a younger sister and an older sister. The old church of the Jews and the church now with the Gentiles in it. We have a sister and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister in the day when she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we must build upon her a battlement of silver. And if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar." This is the idea of the younger sister.
Again, some people think that this is, there's a lot of debate, a lot of debate on these last couple of verses of the Song of Solomon. But again, I'm going to go with the old, old, old commentators here, the Puritans and even the medieval commentators, even all the way back to the first century, even Jewish rabbis. And interestingly, at the Council of Constantinople, the Eastern Church made this law that the allegorical interpretation was the only interpretation. I'm not going to go that far. The early church and the Puritans read this as the Jewish church speaking with Christ about the Gentiles.
And it's possible it's even pointing us back to Ezekiel chapter 16 about the bride not yet being ready and needing to have chastisement and purity and protection and ensuring the chastity of the younger sister until she was ready. And indeed, this is what brothers and fathers and parents should be about. for the young women, that they should have a battlement around them, that they should be protected and cared for. Verses 10 and 11, I am a wall and my breasts like towers.
And then I became in his eyes as one who found peace. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal-Haman. He leased the vineyard to keepers. Everyone was to bring its fruits, a thousand coins of silver. The church has come. This bride has come of maturity now. And she says, oh, I'm full grown and I'm ready for the fruits.
Solomon has a vineyard, and in that vineyard, he's leased it out. And the people who are working that vineyard are supposed to bring in the wages. Now, we know that Jesus unlocks this picture, this parable for us in the book of Matthew, chapter 21, verses 33 through 46, where God says he had a vineyard and he leased it out and people wouldn't bring it. People actually killed and destroyed the messengers, the prophets, and finally the master's own son. And the vineyard was given to another. It's given to the younger bride. It's given to the new bride.
People might call this replacement theology, call it whatever you want, but I think that it's thoroughly biblical. Verse 12, My own vineyard is before me, you, O Solomon, may have a thousand, and those who tend its fruits two hundred. You who dwell in the gardens, let companions listen to your voice. Let me hear it. Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices. That ends the book of the Song of Solomon. Make haste, my beloved. Make haste. Do you cry out to Christ to come to you? To make haste. Do you commune with Jesus Christ? Do you love Jesus Christ?
Husbands, go love your wives. Wives, go love your husbands. May we be those who in a real way show the gospel. and our faithfulness to our marriages and our faithfulness to our spouses that Jesus Christ loves his church. May you look at your bride and may you call her, my beautiful one, my beautiful one. As Christ looks and says to his bride, my beautiful, you are beautiful. Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for your love for us. We thank you for getting us through the wisdom literature. for taking us from the deepest of lows in the Book of Job to the highest of heights in the Song of Solomon. We thank you for your love for us and your care for us this past year. We pray that your face would shine upon us and that you might be gracious to us. We thank you for the peace that you have given us in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, may you love Christ. May you have a great year in 2022. May you spend some time reflecting today on how his mercies have never ended, and how he has loved you with a perfect love. I'll see you tomorrow. Or no, I'll see you next year. Bye.