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Amen. Song of Solomon, chapter number 4, we continue this dialogue between husband and wife. It says in verse number 1, Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair, thou is a dove's eyes within thy locks, thy hair as is a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead. And just to show, of course, that this is a husband speaking unto his wife, if you jump down to verse number 8, it says, Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse. And of course, the word spouse means husband or wife. We're talking about people that are married. He says the word spouse again in verse 9, verse 10, verse 11, verse 12, all of these verses use the word spouse. So this is a husband expressing his love unto his wife and here he's praising her for her beauty and he praises different parts of her beauty. He starts out talking about her eyes, he talks about her hair, he talks about her teeth, he talks about her lips, all these different things. And you know, what we can learn from this, of course, when we read the book of Song of Solomon is that we should be taking lessons from this about how to have a good marriage because this describes the love and affection between husband and wife and many marriages today are severely lacking in this area and so we can go to Song of Solomon and understand a little bit how to improve our marriage. And one thing that I've noticed is that some people just don't have any interest in improving their marriage. Some people just aren't really that interested in having a great marriage, they just don't really care and they're not really willing to put a lot of effort into it because they don't see the point but let me say this, you know, you're not going to have a good marriage unless you put effort into having a good marriage and in order to put effort into something you have to care about something. You know, we spend time and energy and effort on the things that are important to us and things that are not important to us, well, those are the things that we just don't have time for. And people often say, oh, you know, I don't really have time to go to church, I don't have time to go to so many. What they're really saying is church is not a priority in my life. Out of the 168 hours in the week, church just isn't important enough for me to devote a few hours to it. You know, and we always find time and make time for the things that are most important to us in life. And in order to have a good marriage, you're going to have to make an investment in your marriage of your time, of your energy and the only way you're going to do that is if it is important to you to have a good marriage. If you care about having a good marriage. And so some people might even think that, you know, Song of Solomon, preaching through Song of Solomon, reading Song of Solomon, they just don't have any interest in it because their marriage just isn't that important to them. But you know what? That's a very foolish decision to make, that the marriage isn't important and to just put all your time into everything else in your life. You know, business and, you know, fun and maybe exercise or maybe church or whatever. And I mean, look, obviously serving God is number one. No question about that. But you know what? I believe firmly from my study of scripture that your marriage should be number two, okay? And that it shouldn't just be down at the bottom of the list after bowling, you know, your bowling buddies and after, you know, everything else. I mean, your marriage should be very high on your priority list. You know, marriage is an important relationship that pictures Christ's love for the church. I mean, does Christ have us on the back burner? Do we have Christ on the back burner? I mean, it's an important relationship if we study scripture. And so I believe that we should look at the book of Song of Solomon and the whole Bible in general to try to understand how to have a better marriage and improve our relationship with our wife or with our husband. Okay, so first of all, the first thing I see here as this husband is praising his wife's beauty is that he's being very specific praising his wife. Not just, you're beautiful, period. You're pretty. You know, he's going into a little more detail than that, right, guys? He's actually being very specific and, you know, if you want to express love to your wife in this way, you should also be specific and wax eloquent and not just, you know, you want to give your wife a... You're beautiful, honey. You know, you could go into a little more detail. Now, every woman does not look the same, okay? And as we read through some of these descriptions of both husband and wife in Song of Solomon, you know, they might not necessarily fit the bill of your spouse. For example, you know, she talks about how her husband's hair is black like a raven, you know. Well, that's not going to work if your husband has blonde hair, okay? But what we see here, it's not as important what is being praised about, you know, the wife or the husband, but just the fact that the husband is praising the wife's appearance and that he's being specific. So don't get so hung up on exactly what's being said because, frankly, everybody looks different. Everybody is... Every woman is beautiful in her own way. Some of it's not all going to match up exactly, okay? And some of these also maybe are, you know, not really fitting in with our culture today. Like I'm reading this, you know, look at verse number one, you know, of chapter four. It says, Behold, thou art fair, my love, behold, thou art fair, thou hast doves eyes within thy life. So he's telling her that her eyes are beautiful. I don't really know what that means about having doves eyes. I guess I've just not really paid that much attention to a bird's eyes. Now, I've looked at the chickens in my backyard, I've looked at their eyes, and I'll tell you what I think when I look into their eyes. When I look into those chickens' eyes, here's the thought that always comes to my mind. You know, the lights are on, but nobody's home. I mean, those chickens have got to be the, you know, the most unintelligent animals that I've ever seen. But anyway, so, you know, he says that she has doves eyes within her locks. He says, Thy hair is as a flock of goats. And again, you know, maybe I'm just a city boy, but I, you know, I've never looked at any woman's hair and thought of a flock of goats. You know, I don't really know necessarily what a flock of goats looks like. You know, I haven't really seen a lot of goats in my life. I did drink a glass of goat's milk with my dinner last night. That's the closest thing. But again, you know, I'm not getting too hung up on understanding the culture of, you know, saying that your wife's hair looks like a flock of goats that appear from Mount Gilead. He said, Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, which came up from the washing whereof every one bare twins and none is barren among them. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet. Okay, that makes sense. He's talking about the redness of her lips, the whiteness of her teeth. Okay, I can understand those things. Thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks, locks referring to the hair. Thy neck is like the Tower of David. You know, I don't know if necessarily women in 2013 would take this as a compliment. You know, and again, later he uses the same thing in chapter 7 where he's telling her her neck's like a tower. You know, but you know, different cultures view different things as beautiful. And obviously, he's complimenting her. He says in verse 4, Thy neck is like the Tower of David, builded for an armory, whereon they hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men. Thy two breasts are like two young rose that are twins which feed among the lilies. So he's listing all these different parts of her body, you know, her lips, her breasts, her hair, her eyes, and he's praising her for her beauty. And here's the thing, you say, well, you know, my wife's just not that beautiful. You know, you might think to yourself or whatever, I hope you don't think that about your wife. That's an awful thing to think. But let me say this, you know, our society has a very narrow view of what beautiful is, right? Because our society through television and magazines and so forth has this just homogenization of the culture where, you know, there's a certain model or a certain actress that's kind of put out there as like, okay, this is the standard. This is what is beautiful. And the closer you look to that standard, the more beautiful you are. And the further away from that standard you are, the less beautiful you are. But in reality, you know, God has made all of us differently. All of us as men do not look the same. All of the ladies do not look the same. And so, you know, what is beautiful, the expression goes, you know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And also, you know, the Bible talks about that a woman who is a beautiful woman, but she's without discretion. She's without godliness. You know, she's beautiful on the outside, but she doesn't have any character. The Bible says that is like a jewel in a pig's snout. You know, you're decorating something that's dirty, that's disgusting, and it doesn't really make it any better just for that jewel or the way that it looks. And so what we need to understand is that God has made different types of women, different types of men. And you know, if that's how God made you, obviously it's not an accident or a mistake. Obviously you are beautiful in your own way as a woman. And as a man, you know, you are handsome in your own way, okay? And so obviously if you look at a woman who's perhaps beautiful on the outside or beautiful by the world's standards, but you know how wicked she is, you know, you might still be repulsed by that person, right? Well the opposite is true too. Somebody who may be on the outside is not necessarily that beautiful by the world's standards, but when you love that person, you know, when you love them for who they are on the inside, then you will start to see the things about them on the outside that are beautiful. And look, everybody has some attributes about them that are beautiful because we're all created by God and the Bible says that we're fearfully and wonderfully made. And so you can't just get this idea in your head of just everybody has to look like, you know, every guy has to look like, you know, who are the good looking guys of this world, you know? Brad Pitt. Arnold Schwarzenegger, really? Who thinks Arnold Schwarzenegger is a handsome man? Anyway, you know, the men of this world, the Tom Cruise and the Brad Pitt, you know, and these guys that women, and by the way, if you knew these guys in real life, you'd be disgusted by them. They're such fools, they're such ungodly, wicked men and often on the movies they'll play like a macho man or a tough guy and then in reality they're a little wussy or whatever in real life because, you know, everything on TV is not real. So what I'm saying is we don't, we as men don't have to look like Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and whoever and obviously, you know, the ladies don't have to look like, you know, like Angelina Jolie or whatever, you know, before she mutilated herself in the chest or who, you know, what are the other women, who? What other women, Jennifer Aniston, okay, Jennifer Aniston or Angelina Jolie, what are the other women that are idolized as being beautiful today? Come on, let's get serious, we're trying to have a serious sermon here, people, alright? Let's get serious about this sermon. I'm just saying, you know, everybody doesn't have to look like this anorexic Angelina Jolie look, right? You know, where, you know, where you just fit this certain mold in order to be beautiful and that's why today it seems like I've, I've known more women that have eating disorders that don't have eating disorders. It's almost like, it's not notable if you have one, it's notable if you don't because it's just everybody is so obsessed with, with the way that they look and they feel like they have to look a certain way in order to be, instead of just being themselves and look, I'm all for being healthy, you know, I'm all for staying fit and trim and I'm all for eating healthy and everything like that, but you know what, you don't have to just sit there and look like this certain look and you know what, there are men out there who, who like a woman that's very slender and then there are men out there who like a woman that's more full figured. There are men that are short and tall and there are women that are tall, short, big, small, and everybody has different tastes. You know, there are, there are people that are white, there are people that are dark skinned and, and different people have different preferences about what they think looks nice and what doesn't. So don't let the world teach you that there's just this one certain standard. Look, you're married, obviously you married your wife because you, you know, found her to be beautiful in your eyes, okay, and so you should express that to her. You know, and if there's something about her that's not beautiful, well then focus on the part of her that is the most beautiful and, and, and I'm sure that you can find many things to praise about your wife's appearance and I'm not saying to make things up or to be insincere. You should be sincere in your praise. It should be real, it shouldn't be fake or you, you know, you're just like, okay, well what did Song of Solomon say? You know, if you try to copy, if you try to copy Song of Solomon, you're going to sound pretty weird in 2013. If you're just like, okay, well I'm just going to say the same stuff Solomon said. It's not going to work. You know, and maybe God did it that way on purpose. Maybe he did it in a way like where you can't just copy it, you're going to have to come up with your own, because none of these are going to work, okay? So you're going to have to come up with your own compliments to give your wife, and also, you know, later in the book we see the wife even complimenting her husband's appearance, you know, in a different way, but she's complimenting, you know, his strong arms and strong legs and you know, the way his hair is and the way, all the different things. So we see here that the husband is praising his wife's appearance. We should do the same thing. We should be specific about it. It should be real. We should just find the things that we like the most about our wife's appearance and praise those things and express those things, and you know, a lot of times we have a lot of good thoughts in our mind toward our spouse, maybe we have a lot of loving feelings in our heart toward our spouse, but we should express those things verbally. We should actually say those things and express those things to our wife, because remember back in chapter 1 of Song of Solomon, this woman was very down on her appearance. In verses 5 and 6 of chapter 1, she was down on her appearance and then he's basically coming in and telling her how beautiful she is, okay? And that's the same thing that we see in chapter 4. It says in verse 6, until the daybreak and the shadows flee away, I will get me to the mountain of myrrh and to the hill of frankincense. Verse 7, thou art all fair my love, there is no spot in thee. Okay, again, praising her appearance. But what's interesting is, let's compare that to Ephesians 5. There's a similar scripture in Ephesians 5, flip over there in the New Testament, because although the primary application of Song of Solomon is the relationship between a husband and wife, there are also other symbolic or spiritual applications that are going on beneath the surface in Song of Solomon. But you know, lesson 1 from Song of Solomon chapter 4 is to praise your wife's appearance, be specific, wax eloquent, you say, well I'm just embarrassed, I'm just shy, well just do it anyway, okay? Pray for boldness. But in Ephesians chapter 5, we see a discussion about husband and wife and we see something very similar to what the Bible said in Song of Solomon 3.7 when it said, thou art all fair my love, there is no spot in thee. That made me think of Ephesians 5. It says in verse 22, wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it. Pay close attention to verse 26, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church. Look at the next three words. Not having spot. Remember what it said back in Song of Solomon 3.7, there's no spot in thee? Here it says that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. Now look, what we see here is that when the Bible is telling husbands to love their wives, that is being compared to Christ loving the church. And one of the examples of how Christ loved the church is that he gave himself for it. That's talking about the fact that he died on the cross. But that's not the only example of Christ's love that's given here. Number one is that he gave himself for it. But then look what it says in verse 26, that he might sanctify and cleanse it. So first of all, Christ's love toward us is manifested in the fact that he gave himself for us, that he died for us. But he didn't just stop there, did he? He also sanctified and cleanses us on a continual basis with the washing of water by the word. And the reason that he does that, verse 27, is that he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So what the Bible is referring to when it talks about having a spot or a blemish, I mean we all know what that is, don't we? You know, we talk about imperfections physically, right? And we know that, of course, all of us, none of us is like Absalom, you know, who has just had no blemish or spot in him, or like the woman in Song of Solomon 3.7 that supposedly, according to Solomon, had no spot or blemish in her. But you know what? All of us have spots and blemishes. And that is imperfections in our skin, or in our complexion, okay, of our face or of our bodies. And what God is referring to here is that the church, right, represented by the wife, because husbands love the wife just like Christ loved the church, those spots or blemishes physically are something that God is using as an illustration of sin in the church or imperfections in the church, okay? Today our church is not perfect, is it? The people of our church are not perfect. Our church has spots or blemishes, you know, physical imperfections are used here as an illustration of spiritual imperfection in our church. None of us is perfect. We have spots, spiritually. We have spiritual blemishes. We have sin in our lives, imperfections in our walk with God. And the Bible is saying that Christ loved the church, he died for us, but he's also in the process of sanctifying us, cleansing us up, and trying to get the sin out of our lives, trying to make us more like him so that basically we can be a glorious church without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. He's not talking about literally removing spots and wrinkles from the church, right? But he's using those physical imperfections of spots and wrinkles as an illustration of spiritual problems in the church. Obviously in our lives, once we get saved, we're supposed to be constantly improving. You know, when we first get saved, obviously it's not just this instantaneous change. All of a sudden, all the sins out of our life, all of a sudden we're just living a marvelous Christian life. You know, there's a process of sanctification, of growth, of cleansing, where God is removing spots and blemishes from our lives and cleaning us up. You see, when this is compared to marriage here in Ephesians chapter 5, what I see from this is that if the husband is the leader, which the Bible said that as Christ is the head of the church, the husband is the head of the wife, if Christ is the leader of the church, that doesn't just mean that he just wants to be served and that he's just obeyed and that's it. His leadership is also taking the follower and leading them somewhere better, you know, to greener pastures. And so we as husbands, being the leader in our home doesn't just mean that we're the boss. I mean, that's part of it. Obviously if the husband is the head of the home, that makes him the boss. But you know, being the boss is not just all about being served or just all about being obeyed, even though that is part of it. Being a leader is about serving the follower and leading the follower and helping the follower. For example, I strongly believe that the husband should be a spiritual leader of his wife and help her to be without spot and blemish spiritually, just as Christ does so for the church. You see, the Bible even teaches in 1 Corinthians 14 that women should keep silence in the church and it says, if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home. Well, what good is it going to do for the wife to ask her husband at home if he doesn't know the Bible and he doesn't know what he's talking about? If every time the wife asks the husband a spiritual question, he says, I don't know. I mean, is that really helpful? No. Is that being the leader that he should be? Now this is, I'm not saying this so that wives can stand in judgment of their husband and beat that. Yeah, my husband, yeah, I wish he were here to hear this sermon or whatever. I'm preaching to the men right now. Don't insult your husband, you know, I'm preaching to men right now and I'm assuming that if you're a man and you're married and you're here on a Wednesday night, you're here because you want to be a godly leader in your home. That's why you're in church on Wednesday night, to learn these things. And those men in the room that are single, you know, have a desire to someday be married and to be a godly leader of their wife and being a leader is going to involve you spiritually leading in your home. Knowing the Bible well enough to answer those questions and to be able to teach the Bible to your wife, to your children, and to be a spiritual leader that's going to help her grow and be a better Christian. Because if Christ loved the church, he gave himself for it. He said he's going to sanctify it, cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. You know, that sounds like I should preach the word of God unto my wife. Help cleanse her, help sanctify her. You know, help her get the spot and wrinkle out of her life. Not that I'm better than her, but you know what, I do need to get ahead of her spiritually if I'm going to be the right type of husband. That's what I believe. I do not believe that the wife should be ahead of her husband spiritually. And I'm not saying for the wife to slow down, I'm saying for the husband to speed up. And I'm saying that we as men need to understand that it is our job to spiritually lead at home and God requires more of us as men spiritually. We need to be in our Bibles more, we need to be taking a stronger stand, we need to have a strict view of the word of God by which we live our lives and lead our family and direct our family. Look, we should not be a bad influence on our family spiritually. Are you listening? We should not be increasing the blemishes and increasing the spots in our wife. We shouldn't be teaching her to sin and leading her into sin and bringing, you know, bringing sin into the home. Bringing home movies and putting them on, hey, you know, let's watch this movie and hey, let's drink alcohol together and hey, let's go out to the club, you know, introducing all this sin that was perhaps even unknown unto our wife and, you know, we're dragging her down and being a bad influence. The contrary should be true, that we should be a positive influence on our wife, trying to lift her up spiritually, teaching her new things from the Bible, leading her to be a better Christian, and look, not just leading by telling her, but showing her, being the example. I mean, Christ left us an example that we should follow in His steps, right? Isn't that part of how He cleanses and sanctifies us? He showed us how to do it. He didn't just tell us how to do it, He showed us how to do it. We as husbands need to be a spiritual leader in the home. We need to model the way. We need to demonstrate the Christian life. We need to be a godly example for our wife to follow. We should be worth following, and then we should teach and preach the Word of God to our family. Look, men today that are listening to me, maybe you're one that wants to pastor a church someday. Look, the first church that you ever pastor is your family, and I'm not, and don't take that and say, well, I'm going to quit going to church and just, don't even get me started on that. Obviously, a family is not church, but it is a good illustration of church, and God said if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God? See, the ruling of the home, notice how it's synonymous with the taking care of the home. So it's not just a self-serving rule. It's not just I'm ruling, I'm the boss, I'm to be obeyed, it's all about me, but rather it is one where I'm going to use my position of authority in the home to help bring my whole family closer to God, help bring them all into greater service for God. I'm going to lead and I'm going to show them and say come with me and see my zeal for the Lord, and to be an example, to lead by example, to be right there leading the way, not saying do as I say, not as I do, but showing as an example, and that's what Ephesians 5 teaches. So part of being a husband is being a leader, and that means being someone that's worth following, and you know what, to lead, you've got to be in the front. I mean if you're in the back of the pack, you're not leading, are you? Have you ever heard the expression leading from behind? Well good, doesn't make any sense, but you know, you should be out in front leading. You know, you don't want to be trailing behind the group, you're way behind, hey guys, wait, let me tell you where to go guys, you know, no, you should be out there in the front if you want to lead, you've got to get in front of her if you want to lead. That's good advice for leadership right there, get out front and it's going to be a lot easier for you to be a leader. You know I see a lot of marriages where the wife is ahead of the husband spiritually. You know you'll see a wife that's doing a lot of Bible reading, going to a lot of church, doing a lot of soul winning, and then the husband is just really not that interested in spiritual things and he's way behind her spiritually. That is a really unhealthy situation to have. And then the woman will sometimes say, well I have to be the leader because, you know, he's just so far behind, I mean that's a tragedy, that's a bad situation. Say how do I fix it? Look that guy's going to have to, I mean that guy's going to have to get out front and start leading and take over. And he's got to study his Bible and get interested in church, get interested in the things of God, so they can be an effective spiritual leader. So the first thing we learn tonight, go back to Song of Solomon, chapter 4, the first thing we see is we see that the husband should praise his wife's beauty. He should be specific. He should wax eloquent. He should find attributes about his wife to praise, whether it's her hair, whether it's her lips, whether it's her breasts, whatever it is, the Bible is listing all these different things. These are just examples of things that can be praised about your wife's appearance to make her feel loved and to express your love to your wife. And then he also uses that phrase in verse 7, Thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee. You know, obviously that's referring to physically, but so much the more spiritually they should be without spot and blemish. We should be a leader, help them achieve that status. Verse number 8 says, Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse. Come with me from Lebanon. Look from the top of Ammana, from the top of Sheiner and Herman, from the lion's dance, from the mountains of the leopards. Again, leadership. Come with me. Follow me. Go where I'm going. And again, that ties in perfectly with verse 7. Look at verse 9. It says, Thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse. Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of the neck. You say, well why is he calling her my sister, my spouse? Well obviously this is not his physical sister, okay, this is in West Virginia or Kentucky, but he's saying here, you know, my sister, my spouse, because of the fact that those of us that are saved are brothers and sisters in Christ, because God is our Father. And so we need to understand the importance of marrying a woman that is a sister. Because of the fact that if we marry one that is not a sister, that is not in Christ, we're being unequally yoked together with unbelievers. And the Bible says, you know, what fellowship hath unrighteousness with righteousness? What conquered hath Christ with Belial? What part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And the Bible says, be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers. How can you as a godly Christian have fellowship and conquered and be going the same direction with someone who's not even saved? Now if you're a very backslidden, worldly Christian, you can probably get along with unsaved people just fine, because you're living like the unsaved anyway. But you know what? Down the road one day you might actually decide to start wanting to serve God. And the more you start to serve God, the more you put on the new man and walk in the Spirit, all of a sudden you and your spouse are going to be going two very different directions and you're going to have serious problems in your marriage. And you know what, if that's your situation, you know, you're in a bad situation. If you're married to someone that's not saved, the mistake you made was marrying someone that wasn't saved. And a lot of times now you're in a position that's difficult, you know, you got to just do the best you can within that situation. You know, let's say your husband's not saved. He's not leading you spiritually, he's not even saved. But you should still do the best you can to submit to him and obey him in all things and be the most godly, righteous wife that you can be. Hopefully your example can eventually help win him to Christ. You know, if you're a saved husband and your wife's not saved, you know, you can be the best leader and the best example you can be and eventually, hopefully, you can win your wife to Christ. I mean, that's the goal. But it's a bad situation and so young people and teenagers and young singles do not play around with this. Don't even take a chance. Don't even marry somebody or date somebody where you're like, well, I think they're saved. I mean, they're kind of, you know, they go to so-and-so first church of the deep freeze and you know, I don't know, maybe they're saved. They kind of believe the gospel over there. Oh, she's Episcopalian. That's Christian, right? You know what I mean? She's United Methodist. I mean, she said she believes in Jesus. I mean, why don't you try to find somebody that you can be pretty confident is actually saved. And you know what is amazing? People will be dating, Christian young people will date someone for months and then you'll ask that person about the person they're dating. So what's the spiritual background? What kind of church do they go to? Oh, we haven't really talked about that. What have you talked about? What are you talking about? What meaningless, unimportant things are you talking about for months and you don't even know where they've grown up going to church or you don't even know what they believe about salvation or about eternal security or about, you know, church and what their doctrines are. Look, if you're dating, talk about spiritual things with someone that you're thinking about spending the rest of your life with so that you don't just wake up one morning and you're married to somebody who believes completely differently than you. And it's too late to make that decision. So make sure that your wife is a sister. Make sure that your husband is a brother in Christ. You know, try to, of course, make as certain as you can that the person that you're marrying is saved first and foremost. That's the most important criteria in a spouse is that they're saved. He says in verse 9, thou hast ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse. Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes, with one chain of thine neck. How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse. How much better is thy love than wine. And the smell of thine ointments than all spices. Now look, these are very strong feelings that he's expressing toward his wife. I mean, the word ravish is a pretty strong word. You know, it's kind of like that word that I alluded to last week. You remember? That also started with an R? You know, that's another synonym for the word ravish. I mean, ravish is a very, very strong word about how the intensity and the passion of the love that he has from his heart unto his wife. Now if you would, let's go forward a little bit because I want to tie in verse 9 with verse 12. Okay, let's keep reading. He uses the word ravished about how he feels about his wife. He says, how fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse. How much better is thy love than wine. And the smell of thine ointments than all spices. You know what? If you really love your wife and have a great relationship with your wife, you know, you don't have to go out and get drunk to have a good time. You know, it's like I see people, I see people go to the store, husband and wife with a whole bunch of booze in the cart. You know, I saw one time this soldier that had just got home, you know, from being deployed. He just got home and he's coming home to his young wife and they just have all this liquor in the cart. Let's just get so drunk so that we forget how much we don't like each other, you know. Is that what it is? I mean, look, if you really love your wife, do you have to just get drunk in order to spend any time with her? I mean, what a, I mean, it's so ridiculous. I don't, I'm sorry, I just don't understand drunkenness. And you know what? God hates drunkenness and God has a lot of very negative things to say about drunkenness. And you know what? We don't, we as Christians, we shouldn't need alcohol at all in our lives. The Bible says it's not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink, lest they drink and forget the law and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink and forget his poverty and remember his misery no more. Drinking is for losers because they have to just forget the misery and forget the poverty of their life and just forget what a loser they are, so they have to drink to just numb themselves to reality. He said here that, you know, his wife's love is better than wine. You know, it's like better than, better than going out and drinking for a good time, why don't you spend a good time with your spouse? You know? If you really love your spouse, you don't need to drown your sorrows about how miserable you are. Okay? But anyway, it says in verse 11, thy lips, O my spouse, drop as the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under thy tongue, and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. So without being graphic in verse 11, you know, this guy figured out what his wife's lips and tongue taste like, and she figured out what his lips and tongue taste like, okay? Enough said. You know, this is the type of relationship that we should have within marriage. And you say, oh, I can't believe you said that, I'm just, what else am I supposed to, what else am I supposed to preach about verse 11? You know, I'm trying to go verse by verse through the Song of Solomon. You know, you kiss your wife on the cheek, you know, what's wrong with you? I mean, you know, and you say, well, well, you've been married as long as we have. Well, you know what, you shouldn't let marriage get to that point. You know, you kiss your wife on the cheek once a month, you know, it's time to, you know what, and let me give you a tip, guys. If you go to kiss your wife and she tries to follow the, you know, the sermon on the mount and turn the other cheek, you know what, just grab the back of her head and just tilt it the way it needs to be, friend, and she'll thank you for it. But anyway, turn if you would to, keep your finger in Song of Solomon 4 and turn to Proverbs chapter 5. And you know, this is, this is just good practical advice from the Word of God, by the way. You know, you try to kiss your wife on the mouth and she turns her cheek to you, you grab the back of her head and tilt it around and kiss her where you want to kiss her, okay? But anyway, and same thing goes the other way, you know. I don't believe in this, you know, this thing that the world teaches that, you know, basically, yeah, you know, it's your wife, it's your husband, you just act all cold to each other. That's not what the Bible's teaching. Now, in Song of Solomon 4.12, it says, a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse. A spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Now, the Bible interprets that in Proverbs 5. Now notice the adjectives there in Song of Solomon 4.12. A garden enclosed. What does it mean to have an enclosed garden? Like a wall around it, right? Isn't that what it means, like a fence around it or a wall? A garden that's not enclosed would be what? Open to the, open to the public, right? A garden that's not enclosed is open to the public. A garden that's enclosed is sealed off, it's walled, it's fenced in, it's private. Isn't that what that means? Look at the next phrase. A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, okay, a fountain sealed. So we see that it's enclosed, it's shut, and it's sealed, meaning that it is private, meaning that it is for him alone and no one else. Doesn't that make sense? This fountain is for him alone. This garden, this spring is only for him and no one else. Look at Proverbs 5 where the same exact thing is taught. Remember the word fountain in Song of Solomon 4.12. It says in verse 15 of Proverbs 5, drink waters out of thine own cistern. Now a cistern is an old word, it's like one of those wells that's made out of stone. You know the well that you picture with the bucket that lowers down and it's like a round stone deal? That's what a cistern is. It says drink waters out of thine own cistern and running waters out of thine own well. Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad and rivers of waters in the streets. And then look at verse 17 and tell me if it reminds you of Song of Solomon 4.12. Let them be only thine own and not strangers with thee. Do you see that, the concept of being enclosed or sealed? And then it says let thy fountain be blessed and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Now look, if the Bible is saying rejoice with the wife of thy youth, you know what that sounds to me like? It sounds to me like they're not young anymore, right? Because it's saying the wife of thy youth, meaning the wife that you're married to since you were young. So what it's been, and keep reading, it says let her be as the loving hind and pleasant Let her breasts satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love. Now see the exact wording from Song of Solomon about being ravished with her love? And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger? So what the Bible's teaching here is that as we get older, we should still rejoice in the wife of our youth and not say, well, you know, I'm sick of her, I loved her when I was young or, you know, I loved her when I first married her but I'm not sure if I love her anymore or I'm not sure I love him anymore because, you know, the newness has worn off and yeah, when I was young, we were young and in love, now we're just cold to each other, we don't have strong feelings toward each other, we're not ravished with one another anymore. But the Bible is teaching that we should keep love alive in our marriage and that we should rejoice in the wife of our youth, not just stay married, I mean look, staying married to the wife of your youth is a great place to start. Just staying married. But does the Bible here just say just stay married? No, it says you should also rejoice in the wife of thy youth. That means that we should be happy about the wife of our youth. We should be happy and thankful to be married to the wife that we're married to. Not to just be indifferent about our wife or indifferent about our husband but to actually rejoice in the wife of thy youth. And it says, let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe, let her breast satisfy thee at all times and be thou ravished always with her love. You know, the all times there, okay, is referring to, you know, throughout the course of life and then when it says always, what that means, if you look at the word always in the Bible, it's like when Jesus said, lo, I'm with you always even unto the end of the world. When it says be ravished always with her love, it means that even as time goes by, always is meaning basically until the end. You know, it doesn't just mean always like, you know, morning, evening and night. It means always like five years from now, ten years from now, fifteen years from now, twenty years from now, thirty years from now. You know, she is still as a loving hind and a pleasant roe unto you. She is still someone that you rejoice in. She is still one with which you are ravished by her love. And then look at verse 20, it says, and why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger? For the ways of man are before the eyes of the Lord and he pondereth all his goings. His own iniquity shall take the wicked himself and he shall behold him with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray. God's giving a real strong warning here. You need to stay with your original wife. You need to stay with the wife of your youth. And look, the key to not desiring to be ravished with a strange woman is to be ravished with your own wife's love. That's what the Bible says here because he says, look, drink water out of your own cistern. Then you will not be tempted to drink out of someone else's cistern. Does everybody understand that? Now look, if you are neglecting your own cistern and you're not drinking water out of your own cistern, well, you know, you're going to get thirsty. And the next thing you know, you're looking at other cisterns. And next thing you know, you're going after the strange woman. You're getting divorced and marrying someone else or you're committing adultery or what have you. You see, it's amazing. People go out and they look for a new spouse, you know, they divorce their old spouse and then they go out and look for a new spouse and then all of a sudden they're just willing to put all this time and effort and energy into meeting and wooing some new spouse. And then they marry that spouse and they spend all kinds of time and money and energy on that new spouse. You know, if they would have just put all that time and energy and money and effort into their original marriage, they could have just fixed it. They could have just rediscovered the love that they had with their original spouse. But you know, people don't care about their marriage. And you know what, you might just think, well, I don't care about this sermon, I'm not interested in Song of Solomon, this is a boring book, this is a boring sermon series, I wish that we would just finish up with the other four chapters and move on to like, I don't know, you know, the book of Revelation or something, Hellfire and Damnation, you know. Why are we even learning about this? But you know what, you might sit there and think to yourself that, you know, well, I just don't really care about any of this. I mean, my marriage isn't that great but I really don't care. I just have other things going on in my life. But you know what, your spouse might not feel the same way. You know, so you need to realize that, you know, both you and your spouse need to get what you need out of marriage. And the Bible says here that the best way to prevent, you know, the desire to trade up spouses, and look, you say, why are you preaching on this? Because like 75% of marriages end in divorce? Because it's more common in America for people to trade up spouses than to stay with their original spouse? It's more common. The norm, the norm is to change spouses in the course of your life. I mean, when somebody has stayed married to the same person since their youth, that's an exception. That's one where we say, wow, that's great, you know, because that's less than half, okay. And why is it less than half? Because the things that I'm preaching are not being implemented or thought of. And you know what, it's not being preached. People aren't practicing it. People aren't listening. But the Bible's got all the answers, my friend, if you're listening. Go to Song of Solomon chapter 4 again. So we see the importance of having strong feelings toward your spouse. You say, I don't have those feelings. You need to develop those feelings because otherwise either you're going to have a problem or your spouse is going to have a problem, eventually. And so you need to work on this. It says in verse 12, a garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shed up, a fountain sealed. You know, that means that we as husbands should be protective of our wife and not just be one that just says, well, you know, I'm just not really the jealous husband type. So if my wife wants to go and hang around with other guys and, you know, go out to eat with other guys and hang on the phone to her male friend, you know, that's okay with me. You know, you need to be more protective of your wife and enclose her, you know, and shut her up. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, you know, enclose her, seal her up. And you know what, you should have a possessive mentality of your wife. And wives also should have a possessive mentality of their husband and not want to share them with someone else. And that's what we see in verse 12. It says thy plants are as an orchard. And by the way, I think that this also refers to the fact that what goes on within marriage, especially in the bedroom, which is what is being alluded to in the next several verses, should be kept private within marriage. It shouldn't just be on display for the world. You know, when he talks about having a physical relationship with his wife in this passage and other passages in the Song of Solomon, he often refers to having a physical relationship with his wife as, you know, entering into the garden. And you know, he uses this metaphorical term of basically a private place that is just shared between husband and wife and no one else. That tells me that we should not speak openly about the things that go on privately between us and our spouse. You know, that should be a private matter between the husband and wife that should not be shared with anyone else. This is not, and you know, I don't think that Christians are usually guilty of this, but you know, people who would get together and chat about, you know, women chatting with other women or men chatting with other men about intimate things about their marriage, you know, that's something that should be kept private. You know, details should never be gone into. You know, that's why as I preach and as we read the Song of Solomon, there's no detail. You know, I mean the concept is there, like I would be very comfortable to speak unto another man of biblical concepts and to say, you know, well the Bible says this about what goes on in the bedroom, but nothing detailed, nothing about the specifics, just, you know, basically to go as far as the Bible goes and just say, here's what the Bible says about the physical relationship that you should have with your spouse and not to go further than that because there's a privacy there that should not be breached. You know, where we're just going around talking about things and the Bible talks about having discretion, you know, and not talking about things that shouldn't be talked about. And I don't think that the specifics of the bedroom should be spoken of outside the bedroom. I think that that should be kept private between a husband and wife. And there are people out there today in this wicked world that we live in that think that basically children even need to be taught the specifics of exactly what goes on in the bedroom. I mean, if you send your kid to the public fool system, okay, they're going to sit there and have a class called, you know what, education, where they're going to sit your kid down and give them just every detail, okay, of what goes on in the bedroom and then they'll detail stuff that doesn't even go on in the bedroom of normal people, you know what I mean? They'll detail sodomy, they'll detail all kinds of weird stuff and they'll teach that to your kids and they say, well, kids need to know about this stuff. And then you'll even see fundamental Baptists today, you know, basically teaching the young people, you know, okay, here's, you know, here's what's going, when you get married you got to do X, Y, and Z and just, I mean, going into graphic detail about exactly what they need to do when they get married. Now here's what's funny. Here's what I think is so funny about that, okay? Basically these fundamental Baptists, they do all this preaching, right, to try to get kids not to commit fornication, right? And they preach, you know, don't fornicate, don't fornicate, you know, and they have to just really make sure that these kids don't commit fornication, right? But then when they get married it's like, oh, if we don't tell them how to do it they're not going to know what to do. What's like, well, how are they, how are you so worried about them committing fornication if they're not going to know what to do? But then when they get married it's like, oh man, we got to give them all this instruction of exactly what to do or they're not going to be able to figure it out. You know what, like I said about the chickens in my backyard that are probably the dumbest animals in the world, sorry, I'm not trying to offend you kids that take care of the chickens, but they figure out how to reproduce. They've been reproducing for thousands of years. In fact, every animal in this world knows how to reproduce, but apparently human beings just can't figure it out. I mean like, like, like you're just going to get married and you just never figure it out. Just, I don't know. I can't figure it out. It's called instinct. I mean animals figure it out without being taught. It's like, look, when a baby, and I know people are laughing, but this is not, some people are laughing just because they always laugh, but you know, I'm not trying to be funny here. I'm being dead serious right now that, you know, when a baby's born, it knows how to eat. Right? I mean, but look, babies live under water for nine months and then they come out of the womb and all of a sudden they know how to breathe and then all of a sudden they know how to breastfeed. Right? And, and do you have to teach them how to breastfeed? How to breathe? No. Is it just automatic? Right, because it's instinct. Because God has created us built in with a certain level of knowledge built in just like animals just, they just know what to do. I mean they just start flying, right? It's not like the bird has to sit there and teach them everything about how to fly. I mean one day they just start flying. I mean they just, they hatch from an egg and they just walk out of that egg and they just start eating and they know, and they know I eat this, I don't eat this. It's just programming from the creator and look, we as human beings are more intelligent than animals, not less intelligent. You know, oh the dolphin, shut up. Okay, human beings are far more intelligent than any animal on this planet and there is not an animal on this planet that goes to a, you know, you know what, education class and sits down and you know, okay, here's how you're going to do it. You know, they, you know, they just figure it out. You know what I'm saying? And you know what? You're going to figure it out too when you get married kids, all right? You're going to know what to do. You don't need this graphic instruction where somebody just goes into every detail. You know what I'm talking about? And just sits there and just tells you just every graphic, yeah, here's, let me show you drawings and let me explain it all to you and just tell you exactly what to do. You know, that stuff should be kept private within marriage and it shouldn't be something that's talked about openly and preached about from the pulpit and these liberal churches, that's how they get a crowd now. They just do seminars on what to do in the bedroom and then they just have all these people show up. You know what? That's not something that God ever commanded us to do and it's not something that God ever taught in the Bible. But anyway, he says in verse 12, These are all basically just tastes and smells, okay, is what's being listed there. Just tastes and smells. There's more compliments that he's giving to his wife. So again, it's a metaphor, it's an illustration, you know, going into the garden, eating the pleasant fruit. It's just talking about, you know, a private place between husband and wife in marriage. So let me just summarize what we've gotten out of this chapter and what we've learned from this chapter and really, you know, there's some great truth in every chapter of Song of Solomon that can be helpful to you in your marriage. The first thing we saw is that you should compliment your wife's appearance and that you should be very specific about it and find things about your wife that you like the most and compliment her about that. The next thing is that you should be the spiritual leader of your wife and try to not just be the boss, although that's important, or just, hey, I'm here to be obeyed. Rather, it's to lead her somewhere, to take her somewhere spiritually, to take her to greater heights spiritually, to teach her the things of God, to set the example for godly and righteous living. Getting the sin out of our lives, getting the sin out of my life, getting the sin out of my wife's life, getting the sin out of my children's life, just leading the whole family unit toward holiness, toward righteousness, toward godly living. That is what being the spiritual leader of your home is. We saw that. The next thing we saw is that you should be married unto a believer, a sister. You know, you should make sure that before you get married, you know, that you're equally yoked together in Christ Jesus. The next thing we saw is very strong, intense feelings that the husband has toward his wife. Last week we saw intense feelings that the wife had toward her husband. This week we see the intensity of love and feeling that the husband has for his wife. We saw that those feelings should exist even after many years of marriage. They should always be there, the Bible said. All the time they should be there. Even when you're old, you should still rejoice in the wife of your youth and not let this thing of, well, the newness has worn off and just become bored with your spouse and start looking to another well. You should continue, even after many years of marriage, to invest in the marriage, have strong feelings about your wife, make it a priority, and drink waters out of your own cistern. Be ravished always with her love. Next we saw that the wife should be a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, and a fountain sealed, meaning that you should be protective of your wife. She should be for you alone and not for others. You should be jealous and possessive of your wife. And then we also saw that that also refers to the fact that the bedroom and the things that go on between you and your wife, in the bedroom, should be kept private between you and your wife, and that it should be something that is just between you and her, and it should not be shared publicly or just openly discussed and talked about and oh, you know, it's totally indiscreet to do so. Let these lessons be something that could help you have a better marriage because it's very important and it should be a high priority to you to have a good marriage. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much for this passage and the things that we could learn. You've told us that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. Please just help us to apply these doctrines and to learn these truths and to allow them to improve our marriage and improve our lives, and that both husband and wife would learn. Most of the sermon was geared toward the husbands tonight, but help both husband and wife to learn these principles. In Jesus' name we pray.