Video Transcript: Drunk with Love

What is a kiss? Well, let's look for a little help in defining that to touch or press with the lips  slightly first, and then often to park them and to emit a smacking sound. This is the definition  of dictionary.com we maybe should call in a little higher caliber level of expert, the anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction. That was helpful, a way  of transferring up to 250 colonies of bacteria. And then, some of the grumpy Chinese  Communists help us out a vulgar practice all too suggestive of cannibalism. So there are  different ways of looking at kisses. Here is a snippet of what the Scriptures have to say, Let  him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for your love is better than wine, your lips, drip  nectar, My Bride, honey and milk are under your tongue. His mouth is most sweet and he is  all together, desirable. Now, this is not so much about the juxtaposition of this or that long  words, but it may tell us more about what's actually going on with a kiss between lovers. And  today I want to reflect with you on the Song of Songs. And on the very center of that Song of  Songs, which is an invitation and an affirmation of being drunk with love. We're going to read  beginning at verse, that chapter three, verse six, and through chapter five, verse one, there  are several different sections in the Song of Songs. And Song of Songs is not necessarily laid  out as a story all in the order of the time, things happened. It's a poem and things kind of go  in cycles, and you get different views and different angles on love. And this particular cycle  goes through the wedding. And as we read about a we find that it's a royal wedding. What is  that coming? The whole it is the litter of Solomon, around it are 60, mighty men, all of the  wearing swords. King Solomon made himself a carriage, it's back of gold, it seats a purple, its  interior was inlaid with love by the daughters of Jerusalem, go out to daughters of Zion, and  look upon King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his  wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart. Now, before I read any further, there are  some things that we ought to clarify about this royal wedding. The book is called The Song of  Songs of Solomon. And some people take that to mean that it's about Solomon's love affair,  and Solomon's wedding. Not it's really not so much a poem about Solomon, or his love. We  know that he had his many, well, I don't know if you'd call them loves, but many women and  this poem is most likely not about Solomon, it may be by Solomon, Solomon, after all, wrote  more than 1000 songs and was a great artist. Sometimes great artists write better than they  live. They can portray things in fantastic ways with their skill and language and their insights  into what's going on, when they themselves have lived a much different kind of life than what they portray. But whether it's a song that's written in honor of Solomon, or whether it's written by Solomon, it's certainly not exclusively or mainly about Solomon. The one reason I say that  is because of what it says earlier in the book itself, who is actually involved here, while she  says, Tell me you my soul loves where you pasture your flock. And he says, If you do not know most beautiful among women, following the tracks of the flock, and pasture, your young goats beside the shepherd tents, Solomon grew up in a palace. Solomon never trailed sheep and  goats. And so we have here a portrait of two young shepherds, it seems, who are the focus of  these particular poems? Well, then what's going on with all this stuff about the mighty and  royal king Solomon coming to his wedding? Well, again, let me remind you that it says in the  song itself, that it's about shepherds, and then you're the end of the song of the Song of  Solomon. It says this if a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly  despised. And then it goes on to say now Solomon had a vineyard. He let out he rented the  vineyard to keepers, each one was to bring it for its fruit 1000 pieces of silver. My vineyard  my very own is before me, you Oh, Solomon may have the 1000. Now, throughout the Song of Songs, the vineyard is the picture of the girl and her giving herself to her man. And here we  see there's one vineyard and he's got it. And Solomon Well, he's got his vineyards. And he  had his reasons for getting his vineyards, an awful lot of his wives. He married for political  reasons, it would cement the political bonds with another kingdom that he wanted to work  with. It would bring more money into the royal treasuries to do things that way. So he gained  political power and financial power through his various marriages. But he missed out on  something he missed out on having that one precious vineyard he missed out on what it is to  really love and be loved. Solomon is the probable author of the book of Ecclesiastes, which he wrote near the end of his life after all of his pleasure trips, and all the other things he tried  out. And he gave various advice. And the one piece of advice was this, enjoy life with the 

wife, whom you love. Now Wilt Chamberlain is a great basketball star was a little bit like  Solomon, he claimed to have slept with 1000s of women. And he seemed to be bragging  when he said that, but then during an interview near the end of his life, he he suggested and  said this, you know, some guys think that it must have been great to be a guy like me with  1000 women. But I think perhaps it may have been better 1000 times with one woman. And  that was kind of Wilt Chamberlain's summary of things. Near the end of his life. Anyway, this  guy is, is having a royal wedding, because every wedding is a royal wedding. And he in a  sense, is better off than Solomon. To his beloved, he's got the dignity and status of royalty  when he shows up with his groomsmen. It's like Solomon, guarded by his crack troops who  are ready to defend and fight. And they're there with all the pageantry. Now, he may pull up in kind of a rundown third hand Toyota, but it is the royal chariot, or they may rent a limo for the day, sometimes with weddings, people go all out, and they can't afford much but for one day,  they dress up like Solomon, and his queen, for one day, they rent a fabulous chariot. For one  day, they splurge and throw a banquet that they're gonna be paying for for a long time. And  they do all this because there is one day even if you're not royalty, most of the time, there is  that one day when you are and you kind of want to act like it and feel like it. And so we need  to just think of how this is a royal wedding, even if you don't have the fabulous cathedral to  get married in, even if you don't happen to be the king getting a queen for himself.  Sometimes girls dream and fantasize about their wedding day and exactly how it's going to  go. They know what their dress is going to be like they know the colors they're going to be  picking and what all the bridesmaids are going to be decked out in, they may have the menu  for the reception chosen, they know where they want to get married, there's just one small  blank to fill in the name of the groom. And of course, there are some hazards with that when  you're the groom, and you're just the blank who wants to be filled in. And they already had all  their ideas. And the fact is, everybody may fantasize about this or that person. But in the end, it's a real person whom God gives you. There are some young girls who fantasize about this  famous person or that rock star or that movie star, and they kind of think like groupies, and  then somewhere along the line, maybe they grow up a little or somewhere along the line,  they meet a real person. And then all of a sudden, that real person becomes to them  somebody better than any of those figures they may have dreamed about on some occasion.  A wedding is where you start a union with a real person and not just with the fantasy. And the  wedding day is a very, very strange thing, as we're going to see in the Song of Solomon and  as we see in real life. Wedding Day is the most public thing in the world. And it is the very  most private thing that can happen in the world. It's a thing that's filled with ceremony and  being formal and marching and just the right place and then standing in just the right spot.  And you even got to rehearse all that to make sure you get it right. And you wear all the right  clothes and y'all look so fancy. And then the culmination of the wedding day is when you  forget about formality and the two of you are just together, doing crazy things together. You  on that wedding day make these public vows in front of all those witnesses. And on that  wedding day, you whisper things in somebody's ear that you don't want anybody else to hear. On your wedding day, there are crowds to celebrate and you can't wait to be alone with each  other. On your wedding day you wear the most expensive stuff you ever put on. And the best  part of the day is when you take it all off. It is a day that in Christian circles at least is  prepared for and guarded by very strict stern morality and commands and orders for self  control. And the fulfillment of it is total loss of control. A wedding day is a very strange and  paradoxical thing and a very wonderful thing. And this wedding day that's portrayed in Song  of Songs is that we have the king or at least the king for the day showing up with his royal  entourage and, and she sees him coming and what a magnificent thing it is and, and then he  sees her. The whole You are beautiful my love behold, you are beautiful. Your eyes are doves  behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead now this  might not work on every girl. But if you've seen the beautiful mountain then you've seen the  slopes and you've seen a whole flock just kind of tossing and coming down from a distance it  reminds them of her hair. Your teeth are like a flock of shorn us that have come up from the  washing, all of which bear twins and not one among them has lost its young. Now, there it  was a pretty good thing in that day not to have any teeth missing. And to have straight teeth. 

When you have no dentist and orthodontist great teeth were quite a thing. Your lips are like a  scarlet thread and your mouth is lovely. Your cheeks are like halves of a pomegranate behind  your veil. Your neck is like the Tower of David built in rows of stones on it hang 1000 Shields  all of them shields of warriors. Now again, this might not work as the introductory line to a girl your neck is like a tower. But you got to remember that you're not getting a literal description  of what he looks like. This is what you look like a huge bulwark of battlements that weighs  150,000 pounds. You know, it isn't a sense of being in awe of a great and and majestic and  overwhelming presence like when you're in a cathedral. Or when you do see a great fortress  it's not a comparison of size. But of of how awestruck he is. Your two breasts are like two  fawns, twins of a gazelle, that graze among the lilies. Until the day breathes in the shadows  flee I will go away to the mountain of myrrh and the hill of frankincense. You are all together  beautiful, my love there is no flaw in you. Come with me from Lebanon, My Brides from the  peak of center and Herman, from the dens of lions from the mountains of leopards. Come  away from all those dangerous places and just come to me, you're going to be safe with me.  We're going to be together forever. You have captivated my heart, my sister, my bride. What's that sister thing now? Again, even when you marry a bride, when you see her as a person.  And when you view her as somebody who's not just your lover but also a person and a part of  your family. That's part of it too. You've captivated my heart my sister, my bride. You've  captivated my heart with one glance of your eyes with one jewel of your necklace. How  beautiful is your love? My sister My Bride how much better is your love and wine in the  fragrance of your oils than any spice. Your lips drip nectar My Bride, honey and milk are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. A garden  locked is my sister My Bride, a spring locked of fountains sealed. Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choices fruits, Hannah with Nard, Nard and saffron, Calamus and  cinnamon. These are all great smelling spices with all trees of frankincense and myrrh and  aloes, with all choice spices. A garden fountain, a well of living water and flowing streams  from Lebanon. So he sees her as this garden and And it's a beautiful garden and smells great  and has all the wonderful fruits in it. And it's beautiful, and it's locked. And it's always been  locked. And that is what is going on this wedding day says you are a locked garden. Now, if  you're just thinking about gardens for a moment, which would you rather have a garden that  has been trampled by several 100 People who have left all of their litter behind, or one that is  a private one, carefully tended, beautiful and reserved, just for you, and you only. That's why  this person feels so privileged because he's being let into a garden that nobody else has been into. It's been locked and kept just for him. And this friends is why ultimately, the Bible  commands what it commands about what we do with our bodies, not just to give us orders.  But to tell us this is the most delightful and most wonderful way to enjoy each other when you have kept your garden for that one person and that one person alone. And so he is delighted  by her. And she says awake Northwind and come Oh southwind and blow upon my garden, let it spices flow, let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choices, fruits. He says, I came  to my garden, my sister, my bride, I gathered my myrrh with my spice, I ate my honeycomb  with my honey, I drank my wine with my milk. And then there's this word of blessing, which is  the center of the whole Book of Song of Solomon. It's got 111 lines of poetry before it 111  lines after it. And this is the point. Eat friends drink, and be drunk with love. Drunk with love  when people think of what the Bible says about human bodies, and about romance, we may  associate it with a variety of commandments and senses and orders. But this is God's word  speaking and it is saying you are meant to be drunk with love. In the Bible, when it's speaking less poetically, it'll just say Isaac went into his wife and she conceived and had the child well,  that's what's going on here. She says come in to me and and he says, Thank you for the  invitation. And is delighted there. Now again, we may get a little squeamish about this. But  sometimes we're more squeamish than the Bible itself is. And so the invitation is simply for  the two to become one flesh, as it says in Genesis, for one to the enter the other physically,  and also spiritually, and so that lives intermingle. This is how God designed us. This is what he means for us to rejoice in, if we are married persons. And this is something to rejoice in every  day, if you're going to celebrate Valentine's day this week, and you're a married couple. These are excellent scriptures to keep in mind. When when he looks at her and she looks at him, 

they see things that almost nobody else sees. He looks at her and says as a lily among  brambles, you know, as this beautiful flower among a bunch of thorns, so is my love among  the young women. And she says, well as an apple tree among the trees of the forest  everything else is just a tree. But this was full of blossoms of great apples. So as my beloved  among the young men, they see each other in a way that almost nobody else sees them. And  this is one of those things that just happens. And it is very hard to explain, because they're  saying this and yet it is very possible that if you took him and entered him in a contest for Mr.  Universe, and had him flex, his belly might pop out a little bit and you might not look all that  great. If you entered her in a contest for Miss America or Miss Universe. The judges might say, Man, she's out of here and point to somebody else. But not if he was judging. There is  something that that a person sees in another and we sometimes say the love is blind. What is the truth is that love is the only thing that sees accurately. Well, what if What love sees is  something that God means to be seen and noticed and cherished and brought out Maybe love is just about the only thing that isn't blind. I don't want to embarrass anybody too much here  but, you know, I hear tales from my wife growing up in her family and I know how us boys  whoever is five of us treated our own sister. When Wendy grew up, she grew up with brothers. They had lovely names for her like buffalo but and. And they had lovely occupations for her  like throwing her in the goal. These were older brothers, and then shooting slap shots. They  were hot Canadians, so they used her as the thing they put in the goal and fire pucks at  without pads. So this is basically how brothers may view their sister now in Song of Songs,  she says, Yeah, my brothers, they made me work in the vineyard and I really couldn't do much to take care of my own vineyard. You know, I couldn't primp myself or make myself look all  great. But hey, I guess I turned out okay, anyway. Now, brothers can do that they can make  you the object of firing at and various names you give. But I remember the first time I saw  Wendy and I did not have those things coming to mind. I thought she was the most beautiful  girl I've ever seen in my life. And of course, she still is now she wouldn't win the beauty  contest, but I won't go there. Okay. The fact is that when you see somebody and God gives  you just a total delight in them. It is a beautiful thing and a wonderful thing. Something  maybe that brothers don't see maybe they're not supposed to see even but that that  somebody somebody special does. There's a variety of poetry. I won't go into all of it in the  Song of Songs. But let's face it, poetry often does work better than the anatomical  descriptions that we get from the doctors, or the pornographic pictures that we get from the  perverts. Just a couple one is he says I compare you my love to a mare among Pharaoh's  chariots. Now, some girls might not like being compared to a mirror. But if you like horses  tend if you think they're beautiful, you might say Hey, I like that one. So, he compares her to  the most beautiful horse he's ever seen. She says My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag turn my beloved be like a gazelle or a young stag on the cleft mountains. May case my  beloved be like a gazelle, or a young stag on the mountains of spices. Now what's going on  with this stag thing? Well, a woman loves a man who's who's masculine, who is swift, who's  energetic, who is daring, maybe even a little bit wild. Sometimes girls fall for the wrong guy  because the wildness thing predominates. But something about not being entirely safe and  predictable, and inducing a constant round of yawns is okay in a guy. There is something that  ought to be exciting and dynamic and a little bit wild. God meant has to be that way. Now, I  need to pause here because when you get into wonderful love song like this and talk about  the wedding day, it hurts. It hurts a lot of different people for a variety of reasons. Anytime  that a group of people gathers together there is a lot of history and a lot of pain as well just a  lot of different positions in life. Some kids listen to this sermon in its beginnings, and if they  comprehend anything their initial response is yuck gross. You know some boys are just  horrified at the girl I am never getting married I know Dad You are crazy enough you know to  like girls at some point your life but not me never. And some girls feel the same way about  boys well good many of you will get over that at some point in your life. Others are at a stage  where where you're interested in these things, your body starting to wake up a little bit you're starting to notice some other people but it's kind of tacky and embarrassing to talk about it in  public. And it's kind of creepy for a minister to do it. The others are older singles and yearning for a mate but don't have one yet and so this kind of a passage can maybe make you wish 

even more but it doesn't exactly satisfy that wish. Others come with a garden that's not  exactly pristine. There's been quite a bit of litter and quite a bit of trampling and now and to  read about that garden and what it would be like and what it should be like is not exactly  comforting for where you've been and what you've done. I'm still others find it just very  uncomfortable, to reflect on love poetry, let alone the actual things that the love poetry talks  about the touching the caressing the kissing and more. The Because of terrible things that  were done to them by people who betrayed them when they were younger, or mistreated  them, and abused them. And so survivors of sexual abuse or other kinds of abuse, sometimes have a very, very hard time with this kind of message, let alone what the message is talking  about. Then there are those who are going through separation or been through divorce, and  they know that the track their life took hasn't exactly panned out exactly the way the love  poetry says. There are, some are already married. And for some reason, even if they love  their wife very much, they just got this porn habit and they can't shake that stupid thing.  There are spouses who are married and yeah, they're, they're devoted Christians. And yeah, I  guess they're devoted to each other. And yeah, I guess we're not gonna separate but sure is a drag. And then there are those who have lost a spouse who loved and experience at least  some of this food, it's gone. And they're alone. And sometimes the aloneness is amplified by  the fact that not only do they not have their spouse anymore, but sometimes when you're  widowed, you don't get invited to couples stuff anymore. You're just kind of on the outside.  And so in speaking about this kind of love song, we need to be aware of, of all the different  ways in which it hurts in some of you will see yourself in some of these lines more than in the  Song of Songs. What then? Well, just a couple of things, I'm going to focus mainly on the Song of Songs and not apologize for it too much. But what about those who do find it hurts more  than it brings joy. One thing is always keep in mind who the creator is, and the fact that even  if there are things that we've misused or that we are not yet enjoying, they are good things  that God has made. And we can be glad that there is such a God who makes such things.  Another is that we should not forget that God is a God who redeems and that God is a God  who raises from death. And that God is a God who takes some very serious messes, and  cleans them up again, who take something that has fallen apart into terrible disrepair, that is  perhaps gotten littered and misused in many ways. And he cleans it up again, if anyone is in  Christ is a new creation says the Bible. And as that new creation takes shape, there are things that you may have given up on and all this will never be true of me. I can never have that  kind of a relationship. I can never enjoy that kind of romance. I can never get that excited  about somebody else's body. And then God does it. And the things that you thought were  dead and impossible, become new. And just a little bit more faith in the Lord in these affairs,  but also just an understanding of each other. The Bible says weep with those who weep.  Rejoice with those who rejoice and to be aware that on Valentine's Day, some people are  rejoicing, and they are glad and the Song of Songs is a living reality to them to at least some  degree. And even if you can't enjoy that yourself, or at least not yet, you can rejoice with  those who do. And those of us who do rejoice can also at the same time mourn with those  who mourn sympathize with those who may struggle. Keep an eye of friendly arm for the  singles who are still looking for those who are struggling, who are fall who have fallen for the  the widower for the abuse survivor. God brings all together in one body, and as members of  one body to love and to cherish and build one another up and believe in the powers of his  new creation. Those are what we ought to do when the love songs hurt. But having said that,  I'm going to move on with more of the love song itself because it is after all, this book of the  Bible that we're looking at today. Once is not enough for him to describe her or for her to  describe him for that matter. Here's a description of how he appears to her My beloved is  radiant and ruddy, distinguished among 10,000 is head is the finest goal is locks or wavy,  black as a raven. His eyes are like doves besides streams of water. Bathed in milk sitting  beside a full pool. His cheeks are like beds of spices, mounds of sweet smelling herbs, his lips  are lilies, dripping liquid myrrh is arms are rods of gold set with jewels. His body is polished  ivory, but decked with sapphires. His legs are alabaster columns on bases of gold, his  appearance is like Lebanon choices, the cedars, his mouth is most sweet and he is all  together desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend, oh daughters of Jerusalem, as 

she gives us description. When in her dream at least she's out looking for him. This is not very helpful for the sketch guy. You know when you're trying to get the exact look so you can hunt  down the suspects or in this case hunt down her lover, but this is an outpouring of how she  how he appears to her. And when he describes her which he does repeatedly, he sees her as  a dazzling beauty turn your eyes away from me. They overwhelmed me. He says 60 Queens  there may be and 80 concubines and virgins beyond number. You may have the magazine  filled with the models and the supermodels and the screens filled with the actresses and and  the glamour girls and they're all out there. But my dove my perfect one is unique, the only  daughter of her mother, the favorite of the one who bore her. The maidens saw her and called her blessed that queens in the concubines and all the supermodels. They said whoa, who is  this that appears like the dawn fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in  procession to him somehow all the glory of the universe and all the beauty of the skies have  been poured into this one person and you know in the way in drunk with love he thinks  everybody sees are the same thing. And that the supermodels are saying ooh, I wish I looked  like that. How beautiful are your feet, your rounded thighs, your navel, your belly, your two  breasts, your neck, your eyes, your nose, your head. Your flowing locks are like purple, a king  is held captive in the tresses. Oh, how beautiful and pleasant you are a loved one with all your delights. He's gotten tangled up in her hair and he just can't get away. She's got him. And  she's got him tied down. And so he they're praising each other from head to toe and from toe  to head, delighting in the other whom God has given them. Your stature he says is like a palm  tree and your breasts are like its clusters, I say I will climb the palm tree and lay hold of its  fruit. Oh May your breasts be like clusters of the vine, and the scent of your breath like  apples, and your mouth like the best line. And she says it goes down smoothly from my  beloved gliding over lips and tea. I am my beloved. And his desire is for me. So again and  again throughout the Song of Songs you see people's desire gets stronger and stronger and  stronger, and then their desire be satisfied in each other. And as you read the Song of Songs,  you also find out it's not just about bodies. There's a lot about bodies and a great appreciation of the bodies. But that's not all. And of course in in any relationship there is more to life than  the two bodies and what the two bodies do together. And some of it is just doing stuff  together. Everything is twice as nice. When you do it together. There's a beautiful snippet of  poetry in chapter two, my beloved speaks and says to me, Arise, my love my beautiful one  and come away. For behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear  on the earth, the time of singing has come and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our  land. The fig tree ripens with figs and the vines are in blossom. They give forth fragrance arise my love my beautiful one, and come away. I remember when I got married, we went to  Niagara Falls. And I suppose I could have gone to Niagara as a tourist, but I I suspect I enjoyed Niagara more than most of the other tourists did. And I had more than a month off between  when I finished my seminary studies and when I started as an intern pastor, the church, so we just had a month to gather to do stuff and be places and so we went to Niagara which was in  Ontario where she lived and we went out west where I grew up and we went to Yellowstone  Park and we went to Glacier Park and you know, Glacier gets really cold at night. But that was  no problem. And there are just very beautiful things in nature that God makes and I guess I  could have, you know, gone to Niagara as a single and hiked Yellowstone glacier as a single  and would have been nice. But it looks better with somebody else to enjoy it with. Now again,  the Lord has a sense of humor and all this and embodies are very strange things. Last day  and Yellowstone, I get the flu and we get to the dragon's mouth that really sticks bad I grew  up. So that's, that's how honeymoons go. Your your body is drunk with love. And then your  body just got other kinds of problems. And these, that's how life is. You enjoy things together,  you go through stuff that isn't so pleasant together. But it's the burdens are cut in half when  you bear them together, the joys are doubled when you enjoy them together. And proverbs  five just emphasizes again the joys of being captivated by true love. Because there the world  will sell you many alternative approaches that sexuality is just something that you get as  many people as you can and run up as long a list as you possibly can, and so on. And  Proverbs says, Well Come on drink from your own well, from your own fountain, from your  own wife, why be captivated by anybody else be captivated, be captured by true love. And 

then remember that love has a number of things besides simply physical desire or romantic  attraction, love has timing. And you read again and again and again. In the Song of Songs, I  adjure you that you do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Timing is everything you  need to wait for the right person and not just fling yourself or just anybody because you are  dreaming of the wedding name of groom to be filled in later, you know, you do want the name of the right groom or the right bride to be filled in. So be willing to wait for the right person, it  is better to be single and wish you were married than to be married and wish you were single. And so to wait and not awaken love until the right time is important. We also need to wait not  just for the right person, but for the right time. Keep your passion in check to the wedding  banquet, there is an invitation to be drunk with love. But there is also a command about when not to be drunk with love them for married people. Sometimes you wait for the right mood.  There are special marital moments when both of you feel passion. And there are others where one of you feel lousy, the other one's not interested or what have you. That Song of Songs  has that too. She's dreaming, she's sleeping, all of a sudden, she wants her lover, and he's  not there, where to go. And so you have all these all these different things that can go on in a  marital relationship and, and the ability to recognize the timing, sometimes there's a laugh  about the weird timing is all part of it. Love as well, time it's also public. And what we're  talking about here is very private. Somebody said they should make a movie of the Song of  Songs. And I said better not. That doesn't lend itself well to the screen. Some things are  meant to be very private, but others in government to be very public. The fact that you love  each other, the fact that you're committed to each other, the fact that you make a very public deal of what you're going to do in private. The King has brought me into his chambers. He's  brought me to the house of wine, the banquet hall, his banner over me was love. I am my  beloved's and My beloved is mine. They don't make any secret about it. It's a public love. It's  a committed love. My lover is mine. I'm his I am my lovers, my lover is mine. I belong to my  lover his desire is for me. This is meant to be between one man and one woman in a lifelong  commitment we belong to each other. As the Apostle Paul said in the New Testament, you  don't own your own body anymore. It's hers. And, or it's his. And so we have a committed love where we belong to each other and belong to nobody else. It's a fierce love. Near the end of  Song of Songs set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is strong as death. Jealousy is fierce as the grave. There's a part of the old fashioned wedding vows which  said forsaking all others that was part of that was part of the Vows you were forsaking all  others because love is jealous, and as fierce as the grave. It's flashes are flashes of fire, the  very flame of the Lord. This is the only mention of God in the whole Song of Songs, but it tells  you where it all came from. That flash of fire was like a flash of lightning from the Lord. Many  waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. Yes, a man offered for love all the  wealth of his house. He would be utterly despised. So there is this fierce and jealous love  because it originates in the in the fierceness and jealousy of God Himself and He wants us to  taste at least something of that. descend from poetry to just some Quick prose. For those of  you who like bullet points and lessons and not just poetry, I like the poetry. But here it is.  Romance is thrilling and delightful. bodies can be fun and funny and you better have a little  bit of a sense of humor about it. Because some of this is really kind of ridiculous. The little  kids are right about that. That's weird. You know that it is but weird isn't always bad. Making  love brings fantastic pleasures, their pleasures worth waiting, waiting for. They're also  pleasures worth seeking. Sometimes there are people whose marriage does get kind of cold,  or boring, or just kind of okay, I guess we'll keep muddling along. Don't forget your first love.  Don't forget the joy or the passion that you once had. It can live again. If you both desire that, and pray for that and seek that together. It may come slowly, it may come very suddenly. But  it's meant to be joyful and fantastic. And for some of you who are young, let me just say, you  know, some of you are newlyweds in the gap. By the time I'm an old codger like Yeah, I mean, all the overall that song a song stuff? Don't bet on it. What does this tell you about the  inventor? There are some people who think that religion in general and Christianity in  particular, are -opposed to pleasure, and are kind of a wet blanket on Romance. I think maybe we've heard a little differently this morning. Who invented all that? Do you think the enemy of pleasure invented Romance? Do you think the enemy of pleasure invented making love I 

mean, these aren't things he himself does he, he's the creator. He, he's utterly different from  anything he's made. But he's the one who invented it. And he is the source of every good and perfect gift. And he knows more about delight and pleasure than anybody else in the  universe, because he is the creator of it all. And he is the source of it all. He knows more  about love than anybody else in the universe, because God is love, again, in a different sense  than we often experienced love, but he is loving the source of all loving. And what that tells us is that all these things are gifts from him. And they are caused us to be grateful to him and  glorify Him and be amazed at him. Sometimes when people talked about evidence that God  created the world, they talk now God is a good engineer. And we see evidence of design in  the mathematics of the universe. And so I give sermons like that, too, and they're good  enough sermons. God is a great engineer. I'll grant you that. But he is also a very great  inventor of pleasure. And as the Apostle Paul put it, in one of his speeches, when he was  talking about God as the Creator, He wasn't so much talking about God as a really smart  designer, and he knows math really well. He said, God fills your stomach with food and your  hearts with joy. And he did that so that people would reach out for him and find him. When  your stomach is full of food, when your heart is full of joy, or when you are drunk with love,  even that experience is meant to make you say, who made all this, I want to know him I want  to thank him. The best garden is kept very private. I've said enough about that. Marriage  unites one man, one woman, it's obvious, but it needs to be stated again more plainly than  ever, in our age. Flattery and finance can't buy love. Solomon had his 1000 women he never  had love. First love should stay a flame. And finally, marriage is a drama, and an appetizer. It's a drama in that marriage in its totality is to portray the love of Christ for His church and the  love of the church for Christ's love is strong as death, it's flashes are flashes of fire, the very  flame of the Lord. The Scripture says, of marriage. This is a profound mystery, but I'm talking  about Christ and the church. As a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, as that guy and song of  song says, Oh, I love you. You're the most perfect, you're the most spotless you're the most  fantastic. So will your god rejoice over you the Bible says Christ died, said he presents his  spotless, radiant bride to himself. The wedding of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready again. These are things that go well beyond marriage are going to be very  different from marriage. In fact, Jesus says there's not going to be marriage in heaven. But  something better just as the little kids now can't imagine girls being as much fun as mud pies. You're not might not be able to imagine certain things being better than marriage, there will  be because the inventor of that joy and that love and of that pleasure, has greater loves and  greater pleasures still in store for us. And as you Listen to the Song of Songs, praise the  maker of such love. Take that love that he gives you now if he's given it to you, as an  appetizer, and for greater love yet to come and take it as a drama and those of us who are  married, let's make our marriage to the degree that we can by God's grace, a drama that  shows the great love of the God who made us. Let's pray together, Dear Lord, we, we thank  you for this wonderful book of the Bible for the wonderful poetic descriptions of love and for  the realities of love that we can enjoy. And so we pray, Father, that you will more and more  kindling us this flame of the Lord. And Lord, for those of us who are married, May that flame  burn more and more brightly and burn away all that is displeasing or evil or that weakens our  relationships and help it Lord to burn with all the blaze of first love. And as we grow older, to  have the best of first love and the best of seasoned experienced love. We pray, Lord, for those who are young or single and are still looking forward hopefully to the day when they might be  able to be married. We pray, Father, that you will give them the promise and the  encouragement and the joy that there are fantastic things lying before them that are worth  waiting for and worth seeking. We pray for those of us to Lord, where sin has has damaged  and spoiled so many things in our lives in this one too. We pray Father, for your healing, for  your forgiveness, for the mercy of your grace. And we pray, Lord for the bounds of love, that  go beyond marriage, the bonds of fellowship among fellow believers that we may support and encourage each other. When we struggle when we feel lonely, when we feel let down or that  we've let others down, Lord, when our marriages are really having a hard time to help the  wider family to be an encouragement to those whose hearts are torn and we pray, Lord, that  you will build us all together in your love as we celebrate Valentine's Day. This week many of 

us we pray that it will be a joyful and glad celebration where the realities and the spirit of the  Song of Songs and those of the lord of that great song are in our hearts in our lives. for Jesus  sake. Amen.