By Pastor Glenn Pease
CONTENTS
1. ALONE IN PARADISE Based on
Gen. 2:18
2. THE CELEBRATION OF LOVE Based on Gen. 29:1‑30
3. INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE based on Num. 12
4. RUTH'S ROMANCE Based on Ruth 2:1f
5. THE CLEVER COUPLE Based on Ruth
3:1‑4, 4:1‑10
6. THE POWER OF BEAUTY Based
on Esther 2:5‑18
7. PRAISE AND ROMANCE Based on
Prov. 31:10‑31
8. THE PRAISES OF LOVE Based
on Song of Songs
9. THE FRAGRANCE OF LOVE Based
on Song of Songs 1:1‑17
10. ROMANTIC AND RELIGIOUS FRAGRANCE
Based on Song of Songs 1:3
11. ROMANTIC AND RELIGIOUS LOVE
Based on Song of Songs 1:1f
12. ROMANTIC AND RELIGIOUS KISSES
Based on Song of Songs 1:2
13. LOVE AND LUST Based on Song of Songs 1:4
14. WHAT IS BEAUTY Based on
Song of Songs 1:15‑16
15. ROMANTIC AND RELIGIOUS ROSES
Based on Song of Songs 2:1
16. THE GIFT OF MARRIAGE Based
on I Cor. 7:1‑7
17. THE SINGLE SAINT Based on
I Cor. 7:1‑7
18. HOW TO LOVE YOUR WIFE Based on Eph. 5:22‑33
19. MAKING MARRIAGE MARVELOUS Based on I Pet. 3:1‑7
20. HOW TO BE A SUCCESSFUL HUSBAND Based on I Pet. 3:7
1. ALONE IN PARADISE Based on Gen. 2:18
Back in the
days when women were fighting for the right to vote there were a number of
women speakers who could expound eloquently on the virtues and values of
women. The story is told the one such
speaker who brought her message to a conclusion by saying, "Where would
man be today without the care and comfort of women? Where would man be today without the hands and heart of
women? Where would man be today without
the labor and love of women? Just tell
me where would man be today without women?" Just then a little man shouted from the back of the crowd,
"Paradise!"
The
battle of the sexes is one in which each side seeks to reinforce its position
by going back to paradise and showing that everything would have been great if
it hadn't been for the other. Like the
woman who said to her husband, "Our marriage would have been perfect if it
hadn't been for you." He probably
agreed with the philosophy, but not the application. Women delight in pointing out that man was incomplete without
woman, and that even in paradise he was not happy without her. There are no lack of poets to back up her
claim to be the poetry of earth as the stars are the poetry of heaven. Hargrave wrote, "Clear, light‑giving
harmonies, women are the terrestrial planets that rule the destines of
mankind." Moore adds, "Ye are
the stars of the night, ye are gems of the morn, ye are dewdrops, whose luster
illumines the thorn."
Men
are quick to label this as sentimental nonsense, and they insist that Adam was
better off when he had paradise to himself.
They also have poetic support, for Andrew Marvell has written,
Such was that happy Garden‑state
While man there walked without a mate;
After a place so pure and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet?
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises 'twere in one
To live in paradise alone.
Women retaliate with the words of Dryden,
Our sex, you know, was after yours designed,
The last perfection of the Maker's Mind:
Heaven drew out all the gold for us, and left
Your dross behind.
Man then counters with these words:
For woman due allowance make.
Formed of a crooked rib was she.
By Heaven she could not straighten be;
Attempt to bend her, and she'll break.
On
and on the battle rages ad infinitum, ad nauseum, or in other words, until it
gets sickening. We are interested in
this battle only because it calls our attention to a basic human need, and the
only adequate solution to meet that need.
Man is made a social creature, and if he does not feel a part of
society, or if he does not have companionship, he ceases to find value in
life. One of the most unbearable
conditions of life is that of loneliness.
We want to examine God's relationship to this basic human problem and
seek to discover what it means for our own lives. In spite of all the fighting, men and women need each other, and
they know it. Josh Billings said,
"Adam without Eve would be as stupid as a person playing checkers alone." In verse 18 we find two aspects of God's
relationship to the problem of loneliness.
I. GOD'S ATTITUDE.
God
says it is not good for man to be alone.
Man was to be a social being, and so he can never be complete
alone. Loneliness is opposed to the
very nature of God Himself. God is not
alone and never has been in all eternity.
He is a trinity of three Persons in one Godhead. He has had eternal fellowship within His own
being. One of the key values of
recognizing God to be three Persons in One is that it explains His self‑sufficiency. No other being is self‑sufficient, for
they are dependent upon God and other forms of life. God alone is self‑sufficient, for He is Triune, and all the
requirements needed for love and fellowship are contained within His very
nature. God is complete in Himself, but
man is incomplete in himself.
God
did not intend to make man in His image with the nature of love and desire for
companionship, and then not meet that need.
But for awhile Adam was alone, and it is interesting that God would say
that it was not good. This means that
with all of the beauty of nature, and with all of the abundant provision of the
garden, and with a job to keep him active, and with many animals to keep him
company, there was still something missing.
There was an imperfection even in Paradise. That imperfection was not in
what was there, but it what was not there. Without human companionship all of
the physical blessings of the universe cannot satisfy the human heart. If this was true in paradise, how much more
is it true in our world today?
Cyril H.
Powell, in his book The Lonely Heart, tells of how an English landlady found
one of her lodgers unconscious and almost dead due to gas fumes. It was discovered
that he was once a well‑known actor whose name had been a household word
in England. Yet apparently all of his popularity and prosperity had not gained
for ham any true friends, and when he ceased to be famous he was left alone.
Unlike the Prodigal Son in the same situation he had no father to return to,
and apparently he did not know of God's good news of acceptance, and so he
wrote a note saying, "I am taking the only way out of this hell of
loneliness"
If this
was an isolated incident we could ignore it, but the fact is, this is a common
experience. The statistics are shouting out the truth from every land that it
is not good for man to be alone. It is, in fact, a very positive evil. One of the most frequent causes for suicide
is loneliness. G. Ray Jordan wrote, "Loneliness has driven far more people
to nervous collapse than all the theoretical doubts of mankind added
together." Erick Fromm in The Art
Of Living wrote, "The deepest need of man is the need to overcome his
separateness, to leave the prison of his aloneness. The absolute failure to achieve this aim means insanity."
All
of the facts from every field of study confirm what God stated from the
beginning, and that is that it is not good for man to be alone. Man has to concede the point to the women
here. Paradise was incomplete without
her, and every life is incomplete without someone to love, and someone to love
them. This was God's attitude in the
beginning, and is, no doubt, His attitude yet today. But God does more than express an attitude. We see also in this verse:
II. GOD'S ACTION.
God
says, "I will make him a helper fit for him." God did not stop with an attitude, but went
on to action. He did not make a pronouncement,
and then not follow it up with performance.
He was not concerned with a resolution only, but was determined to come
up with a remedy. It is failure to
follow God at this point that has led to the church becoming ineffective and
meeting the world's deepest needs. Paul
Rees says something that we all know to be true, but he says it in a way that
we need to hear it.
"One of our substitutes
for basic Christian action is talk.
We are beguiled by the
wizardry of words. Our fault here
is both collective and
personal. Churchmen, meeting in
conference or synod, labor
long and tediously over "resolutions"
and
"pronouncements" they are going to make to their constituents
and the world. Often the mountain labors and brings forth a
mouse!
Some tame, nebulous
statement is drooled out ecclesiastical jargon,
which pitiably few people
will ever hear or heed. We easily
mistake
the saying of a thing for
the doing of it. And that goes for the
piously
woolly talk that you and I
do as individuals fully as much as it does
for the high‑sounding
"whereases" and "resolves" of professional
ecclesiastics."
It is
simply another way of saying that faith without works is dead. We have told ourselves so often that there
is no merit in good works that we have begun to believe that there is merit in
doing nothing. We need to realize that
good works cannot save us, but they may be the means by which God can save
others. Someone has divided the world
into three classes of people. They are
those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who do
not know what is happening, and the last includes the vast majority. If we take Christianity seriously, it
demands that we dare not be in any category but the first. Christians must be people of action.
The
whole Bible is a history of God's great redemptive acts, and it is a challenge
to His people to become Godlike in their acts.
God cared about Adams loneliness, and He did something about it. If we care, then we too must do something
about the great need of lonely people.
Paul Tournier in his book Escape From Loneliness says that practically
everyone is lonely, and the root of this is in man's sin and revolt against
God. Man's loneliness is basically his lack
of an ultimate companion. The unsaved
person recognizes that no relationship will last, for all people must die. What can a Christian do about this? That is just the point, for though we cannot
provide a mate for every lonely person, nor can we create friends for everyone,
but we have a Gospel that offers every person a relationship to Christ, and it
is an eternal relationship. Christ is
the Friend who alone can satisfy that empty place in the lives of all people.
We
need to remember that it was not as a sinner running from God that Adam was
alone, and that God then said it was not good for him to be alone. It was an estate of perfect fellowship with
God that he still felt alone. Jesus
experienced great loneliness not because He was out of fellowship with God, but
because He lacked human companionship.
Jesus experienced what the great majority of people experience. There can be crowds everywhere, and still not
anyone really near you who understands you.
It is not true then that a Christian needs only to trust in God to
escape all the loneliness. We are still
social creatures, and without friendship and companionship of others we will
still experience loneliness, even when we have good fellowship with God.
It is
at this point that the church plays a major role in providing fellowship. Christians must learn to accept one another
with all of their differences and weaknesses, and they must seek to provide a
companionship in which there is real understanding. This is the essence of what makes the church different from other
groups of people. Where there is not
total acceptance of persons the church is failing to be the church. We live in a world of loneliness with the
only satisfactory answer to it. God has
given His Son, and the Son has given His life that we might be reconciled to
God and know Him as Father, and Jesus as Friend. All those who are friends of Jesus are friends of one another,
and this is the key to overcoming loneliness.
2. THE CELEBRATION OF LOVE
Based on Gen. 29:1‑30
Sir
Wilfred Grenfell, the famous medical missionary to Labrador, was a fast worker
when it came to falling in love. He was
on board a ship returning to England when he spotted a charming lady on
deck. He was 43 years old, and so it
was not as though he had never spotted a charming lady before. But this woman had such an appeal to him
that he proposed to her shortly after he met her. She naturally resisted saying, "But you don't even know my
name." He responded, "It
doesn't matter, I know what its going to be." Here was a case of love at first sight, and history is full of
such romantic stories where people find their mate in a moment and live happily
ever after.
Others
who are equally open to God's leading have a tough time finding their life
partner. Billy Graham is a prime
example of this side of the coin.
Graham was going steady with Emily Cavanaugh in college. He felt she was beautiful, talented, and
spiritual, and he told his parents he planned to ask her to be his wife. She admired Billy a great deal, but she came
to a point where she told him she had reconsidered his proposal, and she could
not accept it. He was devastated and
felt the world had ended.
Later
Graham developed a relationship with Ruth Bell. Their love grew, but it also hit a snag. She was a missionary kid and felt God wanted
her to be missionary, but Billy felt called to be an evangelist. They became engaged in 1941, but at Wheaton
College Ruth told Billy she was unsure after all. There were tears and struggles before Ruth could make a
commitment to be his wife. She realized
he needed the balance she could give him.
He was too serious, and she could add the lighter touch to his
personality. They have had a long and
happy marriage, but the point is, there was struggle and a lot of
adjustment.
Love
stories can be romantic love at first sight, or tangled webs of struggle type
stories. In one of the great love
stories of the Bible we have a case which is both. The story of Jacob and Rachel is a classic case of love at first
sight. She came with her flock of sheep
to the well, and Jacob became an instant servant by rolling away the stone from
the well to impress her. A short time after
he was negotiating for her hand in marriage.
But the story takes on the characteristics of complexity and struggle as
Laban throws his oldest daughter Leah into Jacob's bed, and thus began a
lifetime of conflict and competition in Jacob's love life.
Out of
this both simple and complex love story God brought forth His people‑the
12 tribes of Israel, and the blood line to the Messiah, and the greatest love
story of all‑Christ and His bride the church. Romantic love is to be celebrated because the whole redemption
plan of God's love revolves around the romance of human love. You cannot tell the story of God's love
without the story of the love of husband and wife. Romance is at the very heart of God's plan of salvation, and it
becomes an effort in futility to try and separate love into the sacred and the
secular.
Romantic
love is a vital part of the sacred plan of God to save a lost world. It is
valid, therefore, to celebrate the gift of romance. God does so Himself by
making romantic love such a major part of His revelation. It is exalted to the
highest level in the Song of Songs where we read of romantic love in 8:6‑7,
"It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame. Many waters cannot
quench love; rivers cannot wash it away. If one were to give all the wealth of
his house for love it would be utterly scorned."
Jacob's
love for Rachel illustrates this. He wanted her as his mate so strongly that he
would work for 7 years to possess her as his own, and v. 20 says the 7 years
were like only a few days because of his love for her. It was a small price to
pay for such a treasure. Love was his motivation; love was his energy, and love
was the fire that could not be quenched even though one wet blanket after
another was thrown on its flame. There is no escape from the emotional side of
love. It is a passion, or an intense feeling. The story of Christ's suffering
for his bride is called a passion play. His intense feelings were a passion.
Passion can be torment, and love sick people can go through torment in what
they are willing to pay in terms of suffering to possess the object of their
love.
I
remember the risks I used to take to see Lavonne when she lived 20 miles away
from me. I was a teen driving 50 dollar cars, and more than once I was broke
down on the highway between her home and mine. If I had a date with her nothing
else mattered but the keeping of that date. I literally risked my life to keep
a date with her. Blizzard warnings were irrelevant, and I would take off in a
car most people would not keep for parts, and head into the storm to get to
her. In our courtship I put 18,000
miles on an assortment of junk bound cars as I traveled that 20 mile stretch
over and over. I had to get out sometimes and put snow in the radiator to keep
the car from burning up. I had to get help from both her father and mine to get
out of the ditch. I had to suffer the torment of near worthless vehicles over
and over, and all of the pain of it was nothing for the joy of being with Lavonne. I know the power of the passion to possess.
Romantic
and Redemptive love have this in common‑they are passions to possess.
God's passion to possess fallen man, and Christ's passion to possess His lost
sheep were so great that they took on infinite suffering in order to make it
happen. The greatest power in the universe is the power of love. It moves and
motivates persons toward more goals than any other power. It is the prime mover
of God, for God is love, and because He is love He created all that is, and he
provided a plan whereby fallen man can be redeemed and restored to fellowship
with Himself. Love is why there is anything to celebrate at all. Love is why
there is a heaven to hope for, and why there can be joy in a fallen world.
The most
powerful motive for the overcoming of any problem is love. Aleida Huissen had
smoked for 50 years and tried often to quit but just could not do it. Then 79
year old Leo Jansen came into her life and proposed. He refused to set the wedding
day, however, until she quit her smoking. Will power had failed her for years,
but love was stronger and she was able to quit for the sake of love. Love was
the passion that gave her the power to do what she could not do without love. A. Z. Conrad said of love, "It
furnishes to the world its progress passion. It is storm‑defying, energy‑conquering,
venture‑challenging, soul‑awakening. It eats up the fires sent to
consume it. It swallows the floods sent to drown it."
If we
love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, it will not be hard to
give up anything that interferes with that love. If we cannot do it we lack the
love that give us the power of passion.
If we cannot give up things that hinder our relationship with our mate,
it is a sign that we have let the passion of love drain away. When we lose the
passion of love we lose the power that makes all relationships the priority
they need to be.
Jacob
loved Rachel, and when a monkey wrench was thrown into their lives, and he had
to work another 7 years to possess her, he did it for his love for her kept her
in the place of priority. This love story is like many of the classic romance
stories of literature. It is often like a tragedy. Rachel had to fight the battle
of the other woman, which was her own sister. She had to watch as Leah gained
status by giving Jacob children she could not give him. She eventually bore him
his beloved Joseph, but she never won the competition to give him the most
children. She also died before Leah and Leah got to be buried with Jacob in the
end. There were a lot of tears in this love story, but it is still a beautiful
and powerful story of passion and priority that should motivate us who have
less complex lives to celebrate the joys of love.
The
passion of Jacob for Rachel was persistent through all of the changes of life.
Rachel did not stay the cute little shepherdess she was the day they met, and
the day he fell in love with her. In chapter 30 she became a jealous wife and a
nag. She wanted children so badly that she became obsessed, and Jacob had to
get angry with her. Later she stole her father's idols, and she risked getting
Jacob into serious trouble. It was not a trouble free marriage at all. Both had
blemishes on their character, but they never ceased to put each other in a
place of priority. "Love is not love that alters when it alteration
finds."
As
monogamists we think we only marry one mate, but the fact is we all marry a
number of people because our mates keep changing, and we have to adjust to
these changes and learn to love a different person than the one we married.
Through the years all mates change, and sometimes it can be hard to adjust, for
your mate may not be the person now that you expected them to be for life. You
have to fall in love again with a new person. Those who cannot adjust to
changes in their mate often get divorced.
All couples go through what is called divorce periods where they are in
the process of deciding if they love the new and different people they have
become. This is where love is again the power that keeps them together. If love
is allowed to fade, and there is no effort to rekindle the flame of passion,
there is a danger that they will part.
Those who make it through these periods do so because they work at
rekindling the flame. Those who neglect love and just drift tend to drift apart
completely. Divorce is a refusal to
remarry the new person your mate has become. Long‑range marriage is a
commitment to keep on marrying the mate you have no matter how often they
change.
Here is
the other side of love that goes beyond the feelings and emotions of passion to
the act of the will. Love on this level is a matter of choice. In Gen. 30:2
Jacob is angry at Rachel. He is no longer filled with passion to roll away
stones for her, or to labor for 7 years for her. He now has negative emotions,
and he wonders how she can be so ridiculous as to hold him responsible for her
barrenness. If love was only passion and positive emotions, Rachel could have
been divorced at this point, but Jacob's love was a commitment to her to love
her even when she was totally unreasonable. One sided definitions of love that
stress it to be a feeling fall far short of the real thing. Some have defined
love this way:
1. "A tickling sensation around the heart that
can't be scratched."
2. "Love is a dizziness that won't let me go
about my bizziness."
Such
feeling oriented definitions lead to serious problems when people take them as
the whole picture, for these feelings may be real for a time but they do not
persist, and if people expect them to always be present they will feel that
love has left them and they will move on to find it again with someone else.
Feeling oriented love will lead people into affairs, for people can have strong
feelings, and even passion for complete strangers who are attractive. If you
let this kind of feeling and passion be your guide you will never have a
lasting relationship of love. Love is commitment and choice to be loyal to one
person even when the feelings are not there.
The
world's advice is to find a new partner when you come to a divorce period in
your relationship. This is a rejection
of the other side of love which is commitment.
Commitment is what enables love to bridge the divorce period in
marriage. The feelings cannot leap that
gorge, and so two people are cut off from each other unless there is some other
means by which they can remain in contact.
Commitment is that means.
Eliminate commitment and live only on feeling love, and you can count on
being a statistic, for divorce is almost inevitable where there is no
commitment.
Commitment is a choice. If I
commit to turning right I cannot also turn left. Every commitment means a loss of some other choice. If I choose to be faithful to one person I
cannot also choose to play the field.
But on the other hand, if I choose to play the field I cannot ever again
choose to have been faithful to one.
Everybody has to give up something, and so the wise person looks at the
record of where different choices lead.
Our promiscuous people the happiest people? Are prostitutes noted for being the happiest partners in wedded
bliss? Does anybody give the playboy
highest marks in being the example for youth to follow? The facts are that two people committed to
one another for a lifetime are always the ideal of what love is all about. This is the kind of love that continues to
grow, and makes a poet like A. Warren write,
We could not know, my dear,
we could not guess
How years augment the
miracle of love;
How autumn brings a depth of tenderness
That is beyond young April's
dreaming of!
How there would burn a
richer flame some day
Then that which first threw glory
on our way.
The
Bible makes it clear that God's ideal is two people who fall in love and
passionately seek to possess each other, and spend the rest of their lives
committed to weather all storms, and keep that passion alive until they are
parted by death. This means that
marriage is not a gamble. It is a sure
thing that it is going to be costly.
Love is a commitment to pay that cost of maintaining the
relationship. The Jacob‑Rachel
love story shouts out for all of history to hear that bad times, conflict, and
obstacles do not destroy a love which has gone beyond feelings to
commitment. The reason the world is
full of people who once loved each other, but are now divorced is because of a
one sided love, which is passion that never developed the other side of
commitment.
The
number one secret of a strong marriage is the assurance that your mate is
committed to you. You can fail them,
and get angry at them, but you know they are committed to you. This is the solid rock on which marriage is
built. Jesus said, "I will never
leave you nor forsake you." And
Paul said, "Nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our
Lord." This is the foundation for
security in our faith. When you have
that kind of security in your marriage you build on solid rock and not on
sand. Lack of commitment leads to
insecurity. If we had no assurance that
Christ's love was permanent in spite of all our sin and failure, we could have
no sense of security at all. Some polls
have revealed that many Christians feel spiritually divorced, for they do not
have the assurance they will go to heaven.
They have a very unhappy spiritual marriage. Mates who do not feel secure are also unhappy, for they feel
their failure could lead them to be forsaken.
Commitment is what makes mates
realize their failure will not ever lead to being forsaken. It can be costly to make such a commitment,
but it is worth it for those who want the full potential of love in their
relationship.
When we
celebrate love we need to see it as a matter of rejoicing in the cost two
people have been willing to pay to keep their relationship alive and
growing. Jacob had to give up always
feeling the energy of his passion to labor for Rachel, and instead feel the
energy of anger at her pouting and depression. She had to give up the ideal of being the one to give him his
first son, and the most sons. She had
to endure the heartache of barrenness.
Anybody could write a script for romance better than what reality
produces, but reality is the price we have to pay for love in a fallen
world. Nobody gets it without cost, and
that even includes God. But God says,
and history says, and life says, love is worth the cost. Therefore, let us rejoice in romantic and redemptive
love, and celebrate love as God's greatest gift.
3. INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE based
on Num. 12
A boy in
Harvard College, many years back, got his father in Maine to come to Cambridge
and see the football game between Yale and Harvard. As they sat down, the boy
slapped his father on the back and said, "Dad, for three dollars you are
going to see more fight than you ever saw before." The old man smiled and
replied, "I'm not so sure about that Son, that's what I paid for my marriage
license." Marriage is like
football in several ways. It covers a lot of ground, and their are many
obstacles to overcome. Whoever is not prepared to face obstacles had better not
plan to play football, or get married.
The
football player faces two kinds of obstacles. There are those built into the
game, and which must be accepted to give the game meaning. Then there are the
illegal, or unjust, obstacles, which we call dirty playing. Sometimes the dirty
player is penalized, and sometimes he gets by with it, and the innocent player
suffers unjustly. Those who enter into
marriage face obstacles they know to be part of the game. There are natural and
normal trials, struggles, and adjustments. Marriage partners also face the
obstacles of dirty play also. They face the opposition of the ignorant, the
cruel, the prejudiced, the jealous, and those with numerous other evil motives.
Moses
had to face this kind of dirty play when he chose to marry across the race
line. He chose an Ethiopian, who was a descendant of Ham, to be his wife. His
sister and brother were offended by this union, and they made it known
publicly. They sought to degrade Moses because of it. Hastings Dictionary of
the Bible says concerning the Ethiopian, "It is likely that a black slave
girl is meant and that the fault found by Miriam and Aaron was with the
indignity of such a union." Most are convinced she was black, or at least
dark, but there is a possibility that she was no darker that Moses himself. She
could have been a part of the Cushites who were of Arabian stock, and less dark
that the Ethiopians. This is really irrelevant since the major fact is that it
was an interracial marriage.
The text
indicates that Miriam did not approve of the union, but it does not give the
slightest hint as to why. It could have that it had nothing to do with her race
at all, even though this is assumed by almost everyone. It is possible that she
was jealous of the woman. There is an ancient translation that reads,
"Because of the beautiful woman he had married, for he had married a
beautiful woman." Jealousy could have been the problem, and not racism,
for it was thought to be a disgrace at this early stage for a Jew to marry a
Gentile.
Many
find a typology here. Moses is like Christ marrying a Gentile, who represents
the church. Miriam and Aaron are the angry Jews who oppose this union. All of
this is historically true, but we have no basis for reading it back into this
text as a prophetic type. We cannot read race hatred and prejudice back into
the hearts of Miriam and Aaron. All we can say is that we have here an instance
of interracial marriage by one who is a great man of God, and that he was upheld
by God, and the opposition was judged. Moses was not lowered in his dignity
before God, or the people, but is exalted as being a servant of God. His
marriage across race lines did not reduce his role in the least. God appears to
be highly indifferent to the matter of race or color in marriage. There is not
biblical evidence against interracial marriage, but much that would show it to
be perfectly normal and honorable.
But why
would anyone marry a person from another race? Why do you suppose Moses married
an Ethiopian when there were all kinds of Jewish girls he could choose from as
the leader of his nation? Solomon, no doubt, had dozens, if not hundreds of
dark skinned wives, or concubines. Many were gifts from foreign governments.
Moses, however, freely chose to marry one outside of his own race. The reason
is likely the same as the one that accounts for interracial marriages all over
the Western Hemisphere. He fell in love with her. It is a human fact that where
any two races are in frequent contact, there will be intermarriage. People will
fall in love with people of any race if they are in contact.
A little
known fact is that when Israel was delivered from Egypt a great many people of
mixed races also went out with them. In the 400 years of captivity there was a
good deal of interracial marriage. Joseph, who brought his people into Egypt,
married Aseneth, the daughter of an Egyptian priest. He could do this, even as
a member of a minority race, because he rose to a high level social status.
Jews and Egyptians would intermarry, but most such marriages would be between
the Jews and other slaves, such as the dark skinned people of Ethiopia to the
South. Their would also be a mixture of
Jews and Arabs. We read in Ex. 12:37‑38, "And the people of Israel
journeyed from Rameses to Succdoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot,
besides women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them..."
It is
not surprising that Moses would find one of this mixed multitude attractive,
and then choose to take her as his wife. She was among his people, and romantic
love knows no race barrier. This is so true that there is no such thing as a
pure race. All races have intermarried down through the centuries. For example, if we study the genealogy of
Jesus we discover that Jesus was not a pure Jew. There is Gentile blood in blood line. The Jews were forbidden to marry with the wicked Canaanites, but
Rahab the Canaanite is in the genealogy of Jesus. He had in his blood line some of the blood of Canaan who was
cursed by Noah.
Intermarriage with the Moabites was not allowed either, but Ruth the
Moabitess is in the genealogy of Jesus.
She was, in fact, the grandmother of David, Jesus, as the son of David,
had a Gentile for a grandmother. Jesus
was not a pure Jew, and there are few who are.
The fact that Jesus had
interracial marriage in His family tree makes it obvious that there is only a
disgrace in the mind of the racist who makes race an idol, and pure blood a
god. You might ask, however, why were these marriages allowed to be a
part of the blood line to the Messiah when they were forbidden in general? This is the key to the whole subject. The reason marriage was forbidden between
Jews and others was not at all based on race or color, but on belief and
unbelief. The only kind of marriage the
Bible forbids is a marriage between a believer and an unbeliever. If anyone of another race becomes a
believer, as did Rahab and Ruth, there is no longer any reason to forbid
marriage. Anyone who enters the kingdom
of God by faith in Christ becomes a potential mate for anyone else in the
kingdom.
The
secular scholars battle back and forth on the level of brain capacity, social
and cultural equality, and other such issues which are totally irrelevant to
the Christian perspective. There is
only one factor that makes any ultimate difference to the Christian, and that
is the factor of faith in Christ. When
that is present, all else is secondary.
We will look at the problems the secondary factors do cause, but these
are no basis for rejecting a legitimate interracial marriage.
Jesus
Christ is our Lord and Savior, and our example. Does He practice interracial marriage? Consider His bride the church.
Here is marriage on the highest spiritual level, and we can discover
that Jesus chooses all races to make up His bride. His bride is red and yellow, black and white. There are millions of racial differences in
the body of Christ. The body, like the
Head, is not of any pure race, but is both Jew and Gentile. The Head is more Jewish, and the body is
more Gentile, but everywhere it is an interracial body. Christ receives all races, and the Holy
Spirit indwells all races. Here is
union on the highest level of God and man.
It is very near blasphemy to suggest that what he Holy Spirit freely
does on the spiritual level is somehow evil on the physical level. If a colored person can be a part of the
body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit will impregnate them so that they bear
spiritual children of God, who can find an objection to a white child of God
taking a black child of God for his or her mate?
Let us
recognize we are dealing here with a totally Christian perspective that is
unique to the body of Christ, and no other philosophy or viewpoint can see this
as the Christian does. Only the
believer can see race from within the kingdom of God, and through the mind of
Christ. We cannot expect that non‑Christians
will share this view. It is an
exclusive Christian view. Practically
it means this: Any marriage between two
believers is acceptable in the body of Christ.
Race is irrelevant. A mixed
marriage is preferable to an unmixed marriage of a believer and non‑believer. If a white Christian has a choice of
marrying a black Christian or a white non‑Christian, he is obligated to
Christ and the church to choose the black mate.
It is
never right for a child of God to willfully and knowingly marry a non‑believer. From a Christian perspective an interracial
marriage is always superior to a marriage between faith and non‑faith. The deciding factor is faith. The Christian does not stand on anthropology
or psychology, or any other ology. He
stands in Christ, and sees all people through the eyes of Christ. From there he recognizes that those in
Christ from every race are really the only pure race, for they alone are all
equally children of God. All believers
are as free as Moses to choose their mate from any race, as long as the mate
chosen is also a believer.
This
does not scratch the surface of the problem out there in the world where the
vast majority are not Christians. When
this message was written a good many years ago, there were still 19 states that
forbid interracial marriages. This was progress, however, for in 1957 there
were 30 states that forbid it. I have no
figures as to when all were changed, but at that time the United States
was the only place in the world where interracial marriage was against the law.
This is no longer the case because of the advancement of civil rights.
Interracial marriage is going on continuously, and has been, and that is
why there is no such thing as a pure race.
Whenever soldiers go to war they choose mates from among the people they
are fighting. During World War II
American soldiers brought back over 5000 Chinese brides, and even 752 Japanese
brides. All the hate propaganda against
the enemy could not stop men and women from joining in marriage. This was true back in the days of Israel's
conquest also. We read in Deut. 21:10‑13.
"When you go forth to war against your enemies, and the Lord your
God gives them into your hands, and take them captive, and see among the captives
a beautiful woman, and you have desire for her and would take her for yourself
as wife, then you shall bring her home to your house, and she shall shave her
head and pare her nails, and she shall put off her captive's grab, and shall
remain in your house and bewail her
father and her mother a full month, after that you may go into her, and be her
husband and she shall be your wife."
This has
happened all through history, and there is probably never been a war where it
did not lead to intermarriage of the enemies. When men see beauty they desire
the beautiful one for a mate, and it makes no difference that they are enemies,
or that they are of different races.
Those who have fought for segregation know this, and that is the main reason
for their objection to the races being together. They know they will fall in
love with each other and marry each other.
The fear of interracial marriage is behind most racism.
Where
does this leave the Christian? We have already made it clear that race purity
is irrelevant to the church. Sherwood Wirt in his book The Social Conscience of
the Evangelical, which Billy Graham has said every evangelical should read,
wrote, "It is the mark of original sin that men take their greatest pride
in things over which they exercise no control and for which they can take
absolutely no credit. Human skin color falls into this category." We cannot join the racist and remain
Christian. We do not have to encourage interracial marriage anymore than we
have to encourage marriage between classes, but we do have to encourage all who
are married of whatever races and classes, for it is a Christian obligation to
be encouragers of people in whatever circumstance, when they are not doing
anything that displeases God. Miriam
and Aaron made this mistake so we can learn not to make the same mistake.
4. RUTH'S ROMANCE Based on
Ruth 2:1f
Nowhere
does history repeat itself more often than in the realm of romance. James Madison was the forth president of the
United States, and he was the chief framer of the Constitution. He was the greatest scholar among the
Founding Fathers. But when it came to
romance he was no big gun. In
fact, he was the smallest of all the
presidents. He was so thin and frail
that he weighed only a 100 lbs. at his heaviest. He was very slow and he was not magnetic.
He was
jilted twice. He was 43 and still
single when he met Dolly who was 24. At
that young age she was already a widow because her husband died in an epidemic. She was taller and heavier than James, and
there was just so much about them that was different. They were a highly unlikely pair to ever become a couple. But they did, and it was one of the
happiest, most celebrated, marriages in the history of the White House. They were ideal for each other, and Dolly
Madison added a flare and dignity to the White House that it never had
before. James lived longer than any
other president who served two terms until Truman came along and topped him by
6 years. His romance made his a story
with a happy ending.
Thomas
Jefferson, the third president also married a widow who was considerably
younger than himself. History is filled
with this theme, for if love does not make the world go round, most agree it
does make the trip more enjoyable.
So it is
in the book of Ruth. Romance plays a
major role in God's plan. I don't what
God would have done had Adam not fallen for Eve, for the whole plan of God
revolves around romance. Ruth is a
story of romance, and there are so many parallels with her and Boaz, and
numerous couples in history. Boaz was
older, and he had status and security.
Ruth was a lonely young widow.
The potential for cupid is great if these two could only meet, but it seems
so unlikely. Boaz is a big shot, and
Ruth is not even on the social
register. She is not only a poor
nobody, she is not even a Jew.
People
have a way of meeting, however, and
sometimes it is by accident. In Oslo,
Norway a motorist struck a young woman at a busy intersection. He wasted no time in getting her to the
hospital, and he visited her everyday during her recovery. Eventually he asked her to marry him, and
she said yes. They went on their
honeymoon in the car that brought them together by accident. Verse 3 hints that it was by accident that
Ruth and Boaz met. The KJV says,
"And her hap was to light on a part of the field belonging to Boaz." The RSV says she happened to come there, and
the Living Bible says, as it happened.
The NIV says, as it turned out.
The point is, there was no plot or plan. Later on the plot thickens, and Naomi does deliberately plan for
Ruth to entice Boaz into a relationship.
But here at the start there is
no plan. It is just what
happened as Ruth went out to work to keep from starving.
The
Hebrew word here is MIQREH, which means a chance event, or an accident. It would be a fascinating diversion to study
the subject of chance here, but for now we will pursue romance, and just point
out that most people in our culture who meet and fall in love do so by chance,
as did Ruth and Boaz. No one but God
could have known of the series of events that brought them together.
I am
always impressed by the events that brought Lavonne and I together. Three of my friends and I were at a drive in
on the edge of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
We were waiting for a girl to come and take our order for root beers. It was a hot summer night and the service
was very slow. We were restless and decided
to take off down the highway to the nearest little town to see what we could
find. Who would ever dream that that
decision would lead to three of us marrying three girls in the small town of
Dell Rapids. It was all because of slow
service at a root beer stand. We just
happened to be at the right place at the right time. So it was with Ruth and Boaz.
One of God's most useful tools in history is chance.
Chance
does not mean that God is not in it.
Margaret Hese, a writer for Scripture
Press tells of how her happily married sister of 30 years met her mate.
She was on a train when a soldier on leave sat down
beside her. In the course of the
conversation she noted that one of the buttons was almost ready to fall off his
coat. She took out a needle and thread
and sewed it on. They kept in touch
over half a continent apart for several years, while dating others. He found that he could not forget her. That sewing on of his button strongly
touched him. This act of kindness
changed their whole lives. The door of
love is huge, but it so often swings on such a small hinge. Had he not by chance had that loose button
the opportunity for her act of love would not have existed, and their first
meeting may have been the last as well.
Chance and romance are often partners.
It put Ruth in the field of Boaz, and the first
thing Boaz asked his foreman was, "Whose young woman is that? Romance almost always starts with‑
I. THE EYES.
We can't
say this was a case of love at first sight, but it was a case of interest at
first sight. Sometimes the eyes do not
like what they see, and it takes other factors to develop a relationship. John Keats thought Fanny Browne was awful
looking, but after knowing her for awhile he thought she was the most beautiful
creature he knew. Everyone else still
thought she looked awful, but love is not blind, it just develops a vision of
beauty that non‑love never sees.
Alexander Dumas thought Sarah Bernhardt had the body of a broom stick,
but when he fell in love with her he said, "If nature had somewhat
neglected her body, it had richly endowed her mind." He saw the beauty of inner being, and he
loved her. We do not know what
attracted Boaz to Ruth so rapidly, but he wasted no time in making her
acquaintance. Christopher Morley said,
"Fifty per cent of the world are women, yet they always seem a
novelty." Boaz thought so about
this new young woman in his field. We
do not know what Boaz was doing before this.
Maybe his philosophy was, the proper study of mankind is man, but all of
the sudden he changed his major to the study of woman, and especially the one
out in his field.
The
Hebrew does not even have a word for bachelor, for seldom did one even exist in
Israel. But here is Boaz who is a
middle age man of means, and he is single.
We don't know why, but we know he rapidly reversed his no romance state
when he saw Ruth. Robert Louis
Stevenson said, "A wet rag goes safely by the fire; and if a man is blind,
he cannot expect to be much impressed by romantic scenery." For some reason Boaz spotted Ruth, and
immediately he saw something romantic he had not seen before. She may not have been his first love, but
more important, she was his last love, and that is true romance. The New York library has over 2,000 books on
love, but man knows more about the rocks on the moon than he does about what
makes certain people fall in love. Ruth
and Boaz were not unusual people. They
were just ordinary pleasant loving people, and they represent the majority of
the romances of history.
The
entire book of Ruth revolves around the romance of ordinary people. That is one of its purposes for being a part
of the Bible. It is God's stamp of
approval on the ordinary person as an instrument of His plan of history. It magnifies its significance of the
commonplace people. From the moment
Boaz meets Ruth the rest of the book is the story of how their romance
developed and led to marriage. This is
an everyday story, and has been from the day Adam saw Eve. Ruth is considered to be a beautiful woman,
and not because there is any description of her, but because the more you know
of her total character the more attractive she becomes. People become attractive to the degree that
you know them.
The
reason most foreigners do not seem attractive to us Americans is because we do
not know them. We see only the external
form and face, and it is different and unusual. If we could know them, and hear their experience, their feelings,
and their ideas, we would see more and more of their beauty. Romance is simply getting to know people
well enough so that the eyes can see their beauty. The Gospels are the revelation of the life and beauty of Jesus in
His attitudes and actions. It is by
what we see in those accounts that we come to love Jesus. If there is anything lovely, Paul said,
think on these things, for when you see loveliness of any kind you are in a
state of romance. Romance begins with
the eyes, but then it continues with the‑
II. THE EARS.
Few
things in life are more appealing to either males or females then hearing
pleasant things about themselves.
Listen to this lover's conversation.
Do you think I am beautiful? You bet.
Are my eyes the loveliest you have gazed into? Shucks yes.
Is my mouth like a rosebud? Sure is.
Is my figure divine? Uh‑huh.
Oh, Elmer, you say the nicest things!
Most
women would prefer less prompting and more spontaneity. This is what we see in
Boaz. His immediate response in
discovering who she was, was to go to her, and like a gentleman, make her feel
as welcome and secure as possible. She
was his guest, and not a lonely isolated stranger. She was to make herself at home and feel safe, for he had given
orders that she was to be treated with respect. He made it clear that the men were not to touch her. A woman alone was open game, and had no
protection unless she came under the care of a man with some power. Boaz gave Ruth that protection.
She is,
of course, overwhelmed by this sudden good fortune, and she asks why he has
shown her such favor. Boaz had done his
homework. He knew all the good things
about Ruth that were matters of public knowledge. The story of Ruth and her commitment to follow Naomi, and to
leave her family and homeland had spread all over Bethlehem. The news traveled fast, and Boaz, who had
never even seen Ruth, knew the whole account.
We need
to pause here, and point out that talking about people is not the same as
gossip. Gossip is the spreading of
information, or disinformation, that in some way injurious to the people talked
about. The talking and sharing of facts
and information about people, and the events that are shaping their lives is
both legitimate and good. Here we see
that the spread of the story of Ruth enabled him to have the ammunition he
needed to penetrate any defensiveness she might have. He told her he knew just how wonderful a person she was, and he
asked the Lord to richly reward her for her faithfulness.
Ruth
responds to these pleasant words with pleasant words of her own. She expresses appreciation, and she
acknowledges that Boaz has been a great comfort to her, even though she is
nobody to him. Here are two people who
recognize the ears as keys to romance.
It is true we have to beware of the smooth talker who uses words to
entice rather than to build up. Some
guys really have a line, like the guy who said, "I'm sure I've seen you
somewhere before. I've been to all the
Miss America contest."
We need
constant reminders that the abuse of anything is never an adequate reason for
ceasing to use it properly. Smooth talk
can be a virtue, and pleasant complimentary words can be the greatest source of
encouragement we give to those we love.
Spurgeon said, "I have no doubt that much sorrow might be prevented
if words of encouragement were more frequently spoken...., and, therefore, to
withhold them is sin." James said
that when we know to do good and don't do it it is a sin. If you think you get through a day without
the sin of omission, forget it. Not a
day goes by but what we could have said something pleasant and complimentary
that we didn't say.
The ears
are a great source of romance. God gets
His will done in history by people who know this and use it to kindle romance,
or to keep and old fire burning. If
someone you love is not encouraged through the ear gate today, you have cast a
vote against romance. The eyes with
their seeing are basic to romance, and the ears with their hearing are also
basic, but there can be doubt that any successful romance will very soon
involve‑
III. THE MOUTH.
Boaz
had just met Ruth, and they had a brief friendly encounter. His next move was to invite her to join him
for lunch, and he provided the lunch.
This was their first date. We
say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, but it works for
women as well, especially if they are as poor and hungry as Ruth. She kept part of her lunch to take home to
Naomi. Ruth may be the first person on
a date to ask for a doggie bag. Boaz
was obviously interested in more than employer‑employee relations. He was really a fast mover.
He was
not as fast as the famous Dr. Wilfred Grenfell the medical missionary to
Labrador. In 1908 at the age of 43 he
was returning from a visit to England.
On the deck of the Mauretania he saw a lady that charmed him. A few hours later he proposed to her. She said, "But you don't even know my
name!" He responded, "It
doesn't matter. I know what its going
to be!" That was truly love at
first sight. Boaz took the more
traditional approach of at least having a meal together before the
wedding.
Food
and love are linked together from birth.
Being given food is the first expression of love that a child
understands. It is his introduction to
love, and all his life he will celebrate the love of family and special events
by eating together. It is perfectly
natural then that romantic love will quickly led to two people eating
together. Dating and eating, and
marriage and eating are inseparable.
This is not to say there is never any unpleasantness connected with
eating and romance.
Former
president Lyndon Johnson tells of the time he invited Billy and Ruth Graham to
the White House for dinner. He
describes the scene: "I asked
during the dinner if Billy would give me the name of a good vice‑presidential
candidate. Instead of answering my
question he shot out of his chair and yelled, "Ruth, why did you just kick
me under the table?" She winced in
embarrassment. Then she took a deep
breath and said quietly, "Bill, shouldn't you limit your address to
spiritual matters?" There could
have been conflict, but Billy recognized what she was saying was true. He reached across the table and squeezed her
hand. He did not always heed Ruth's
advice, and he came to regret some of his political involvement's.
The mouth
gets involved in romance, not just because of the pleasure of eating, but the
mouth is the key instrument by which people give guidance to those they
love. Boaz gave such guidance to Ruth,
and in chapter 3 the words of Ruth to Boaz, which she had received from the
mouth of Naomi, led to his determination to win Ruth as his wife. The mouth, or tongue, is a source of great
blessing or cursing. In romance and
marriage it plays a major role. Again
we use Billy Graham as an illustration.
He had constant temptations to go other directions than his
ministry. He was once offered great
financial support to run for president, and a Hollywood director offered him a
star role in an epic extravaganza. A
major TV network offered him a million dollar a year contract to host a talk
show. Ruth said to him on each occasion
of these tempting offers:
"You're bounded duty to the Lord is
elsewhere."
We are
to live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, and sometimes these
words come through the mouth of those who love us best. Romance and the plan of
God are not just linked in the book of Ruth.
It is a part of all of history. Romance and redemption are
inseparable. God makes the male‑female
relationship the symbol of His relationship to man. Christ is the groom, and the church is the bride. We are Ruth, and Christ is our Boaz. He is coming again to take us to the mansion
He has prepared for the everlasting honeymoon.
Heaven
will begin with a great wedding and the marriage supper of the Lamb. The eyes will see what none have ever seen
before; the ears will hear what has never yet been heard, and the mouth will be
filled with praise as never before, and we will enjoy eating like no gourmet as
ever known. Joni, who is paralyzed and
cannot use her legs, says she will dance with endless romance in heaven. And
that is what heaven will be, an endless romance. Ruth's romance was just one of
many that led to the coming of Jesus into the world to complete the romance of
redemption, and the greatest love story ever told. All of us can be a part of
the world of romance by a wise use of our eyes, ears, and mouth in relation to
those whom we love. These are all involved in the Gospel that leads to the
eternal romance, and to the romance we enjoy in time. We need to pay attention
to how we use them, and be more romantic in this world that always needs more
love.
5. THE CLEVER COUPLE Based
on Ruth 3:1‑4, 4:1‑10
A young
couple who had just gotten married, and who had received many valuable wedding
gifts, established their home in the suburb.
One morning they received in the mail two tickets for a popular show in
the city. A note said, "Guess who?" The couple were amused as they tried to find
the identity of the donor, but they could not find out who sent them. They used the tickets, and they had a
delightful evening. On their return
home, late at night, still trying to figure out the mystery, they found their
house stripped of every article of value.
On the bare table in the dinning room was a piece of
paper on which was written‑ "Now you know!"
Crooks
have so many clever ways of robbing people that it has given the word clever a
bad name. Vincent Teresa in his book My
Life In The Mafia tells of numerous clever schemes he used to steal hundreds of
thousands of dollars from innocent people, and sometimes not so innocent
people. One that shows the thought and
planning of these people is one I want to share. There was a big horse race called the Constitution Handicap. They put a fortune on Flauntless Light to
win. Non‑clever people would give
their horse drugs to help him win, but the Mafia knows the winner will be
tested for drugs, and so they bribed the stable boys of the other five horses
in the race. They juiced those five
with a depressant. Their horse won by 7
links, and they made a hundred and sixty three grand. There was a big stink over the race, but the only horse that was
checked was their horse, and he was clean.
Clever schemes like this enabled them to rip off billions of dollars a
year.
Because
history is full of the clever schemes of con men, and because the fall of man
began with the clever, cunning, and crafty scheme of that old serpent the
devil, we have a tendency to put cleverness in the category of vice rather than
virtue. The Jews did not do so,
however, but recognized cleverness as a great virtue, and one of the most
powerful weapons in the cause of righteousness. Yes,
they said, evil is clever but it is the task of the
righteous to outwit the evil. The book
of Esther is about a very clever man named Haman, who out of personal pride
almost succeeded in getting the Jewish people exterminated. He was only foiled in his plot because
Mordecai and Esther were even more clever, and they were able to turn the
tables on him, and he was hung on his own gallows.
The
whole theme of wisdom in the Old Testament deals with the virtue of being
clever enough to outwit the clever appeals of evil. The fool falls for the wiles of the devil, but the clever stay
one jump ahead of him. After all, what
is the battle of life all about? It is
about outwitting all the clever ways of the evil one to keep us from fulfilling
the will of God. Cleverness is part of
the image of God in us. He is the most
clever of all Persons in the universe.
His wisdom is a marvel as we study His creation. His cleverness in figuring out how to outwit
Satan, and save a lost world, when Satan seems to have all the advantages of a
fallen free willed creature who tends toward evil.
Jesus
faced the clever tempter, but He was more clever than the first Adam, and He
outwitted the old serpent and all his agents.
No trap set for Him by the Pharisees could ensnare Him. Jesus said that we are to be wise as
serpents and harmless as doves, and He practiced what He preached. He lived His whole life outwitting the
devil, and He died a spotless Lamb of God for the sin of the world.
He was, without question, the most clever man
whoever lived. He was a perfect man,
and a perfect man by definition is clever.
There are few, if any, who become key links in the plan of God who are
not in some way clever, and this goes for both Ruth and Boaz. They were just ordinary people, but they
were clever people, and from their story we can learn why it is important for
us to strive at being clever. By their
cleverness they got themselves into the blood line of the Messiah. The first thing we want to see is that‑
I. COMPLEXITY DEMANDS CLEVERNESS.
Boaz
and Ruth had something of a romance going, but it was not what you would call a
whirlwind romance. He watched her labor
in the fields, and they ate lunch together.
They both found it pleasant, but this was not going anywhere. Ruth was dressed in her old work clothes,
and after a hot morning in the sun she probably did not have an attractive
aroma about her. The point is, Boaz had
never really seen Ruth at her feminine finest.
She was just one of the gang.
A woman
has to be clever in such a situation.
How can she ever convey her feminine charms while dressed like a farmer,
and smelling like the farm? This is
where the clever female mind has to be creative to overcome the obstacles to
true romance. When two women like Naomi
and Ruth put their heads together to figure out how to entice a man into a
relationship, you can count on it, he is as good as hooked. Fishing for men was a female practice long
before Jesus called His disciples to the task with a whole new slant.
You will
observe that carrying scrolls of Moses to the field was not one of their
ideas. In fact, there is nothing
spiritual about their plot at all. They
sound as secular as Hollywood hussies trying to entice their third
husband. It seems so worldly clever to
be getting Ruth all dolled up and perfumed to go and entice Boaz. The clear command of Paul was to not be
conformed to the world. But if the
world uses common sense and cleverness to attain evil goals, does this mean the
Christian is forbidden to use common sense and cleverness to reach godly
goals? Of course not. The Bible describes the temptress out to
entice men into sin, and she is bathed and perfumed, and dressed to kill.
Here we
see two godly women trying to make a big impression on a godly man, and they
are using the same strategy as the temptress.
The reason, of course, is that godly men are just as attracted to nice
clothes and pleasant perfume as are the ungodly. These two ladies are not trying to get Boaz to give them a loan
so they can set up a shop in Bethlehem to sell perfume and women's
clothing. They are out to make Ruth
look and smell so attractive that Boaz will say, "I must be out of my mind
risking the lose of this beautiful creature by not taking action." Their clever scheme of giving Boaz a vision
of Ruth in all her loveliness, in the middle of the night, so that she was like
a pleasant dream, worked like a charm.
The next day Boaz was up bright and early resolving the legal issue that
kept him from having Ruth with him as his wife every night. Now that was clever work even though it
added to the complexity of their lives.
How can
God bless this seemingly secular scheme?
Many Christians feel that all attractive dress is worldly, and some go
so far as to forbid their men to wear ties.
It is a sign of spiritually to be plain, drab, and the opposite of the
world where diamonds are a girls best friend, and mink is a close second. Some have learned to be clever in just the
opposite way from Ruth and Naomi. Amy
Charmichael was the first missionary to be appointed by the Keswick Convention.
For 55
consecutive years she served in India.
Before she went to India she went to Japan for training, and there she
learned a valuable lesson on clothing that changed her whole life. She went
with a fellow worker to visit an elderly lady who was ill. She listened to the
Gospel, and seemed ready to turn to the Savior. Then she noticed the fancy gloves Amy was wearing, and she was
distracted from the message. Amy went home saddened, and she removed her
English gloves, and put on a simple Japanese garment, and never again wore
anything but simple clothing lest they detract from the Gospel.
Her life
was blest of God, as was Ruth's, yet they were being clever in such opposite
ways. One wore clothing to be attractive, and the other used clothing so as not
to be attracting away from the Gospel. There is no contradiction in these two
beautiful lives. They were each doing what was clever in a complex world to
achieve goals God had called them to reach.
It is time to focus on definition. What is cleverness? It is the showing
of great practical intelligence. It is being resourceful in attaining goals in
spite of obstacles and difficulties. Ruth and Amy had different goals, and that
is why each was being clever even though they were doing just the opposite
thing.
Ruth's
goal was to marry and bare a child.
That was God's calling and purpose for her life. The use of all her femininity
was wisely used to achieve that goal.
Amy never married, and never had any reason to try to be attractive to
the opposite sex. Her calling was totally different, and she achieved it
fruitfully by giving up the need to show any feminine charm. Not all people are
called to the same goals in life. Many are called to remain single. Our goal is
to be as clever as possible in fulfilling our calling, and not to judge those
who have a different calling because they approach some things from an opposite
perspective. I have always been middle class, but I once heard the testimony of
a man who lived and worked among the upper class. He did things I would never
do because he had to in order to be a part of his circles, and be a witness
there for Christ. He wore clothing and ate in places I would never dream of
doing, because it was a part of his culture. It made sense, and so we need to
recognize people have to be clever in different ways to do the will of God in
their circumstances.
Mary Liu
was sold as a slave girl to a Chinese women, and after much abuse she was
thrown out on a trash heap to die.
Throw away people have always been a part of our tragic world. A missionary walking passed heard the
smothered sobs of this pathetic creature.
She reached in the pile and found this mutilated mass of misery. Both of her feet had been burned off. Her life was saved, however, and in the
mission hospital a pair of wooden feet were made for her. Her mangled fingers had to be amputated, but
one thumb was saved. The long story of
her recovery and redemption in Christ leads to her becoming the editor of two
Christian magazines for women. The two
were The Messenger, and The Star.
When the
Japanese took over her town she had to use her wits to preserve her precious
stock of paper. She took all her trash
and the junk she could afford to lose, and she stacked it all in carefully
arranged bundles in a conspicuous place.
Her valuable paper she threw in a dark corner, and made it look like
worthless stuff. It was made to look
sloppy, and with no care or order. When
the inspectors came they saw how she treated the trash with concern, and they
ordered it carted away immediately, and they left all her good stuff.
The World
Day Of Prayer Committee marveled that Mary Liu went on publishing her Christian
literature month after month, and year after year, when all others in China had
ceased for lack of paper. Her
cleverness kept her in business for the Lord.
It is not everyone's calling to be deceptively clever toward those who
would hinder your ministry, but it was Mary's calling, and who would want to
criticize her for outwitting her enemies, who would have shut down her
ministry? David faked madness when he
might have been killed, and his life was saved. She faked concern for junk, and indifference to valuables, and
her ministry was spared. It is a
complex world, and cleverness is sometimes essential to the achieving of good
goals.
The
world recognizes this. They have to
deal constantly with obstacles to good profit making goals. A major oil company built 5 pilot gas
stations near Los Angeles, and 3 near Philadelphia, which require no human
attendant. The motorist puts his credit
card into an outdoor computer terminal.
If the card is valid, the customer pumps his own gas. The computer issues a receipt, and later
tallies a monthly total. That is clever
enough, but the added touch is what makes it great. If the card is listed as stolen, or lost, the computer swallows
it, and gives the motorist no gas.
Even the
world is in constant battle with the evil forces that hinder good and honest
goals. If you are not clever, you are a
sucker for the clever schemers who will rob you blind. Cleverness is vital to godliness simply
because ungodliness is so clever. If
you are not clever you will not be very effective in overcoming evil with
good. It you are not victorious over
evil, you will be a victim of it, and so you have to be more clever then evil
is.
Let's
look at Boaz for awhile, and see his cleverness in a situation where there is
really no evil foe, but there is competition.
The competition here is not between good and evil, but between the good
and the best. It would be good for the
nearest of kin to redeem Ruth, but in the light of the fact that Boaz and Ruth
were in love, this good would be bad in comparison to Boaz having the right to
marry her. It is sort of like, it is
good to lose one eye compared to losing both of them, but that does not make it
the best alternative. The best is to
lose neither eye. The best in this
setting is for the good not to happen so the best can.
We know
that is just what did happen, but it could have been different had Boaz not
been clever. He had to so present the
whole issue in such a way as to be an un‑salesman. I don't know if there is such a word, but
that is what Boaz was doing. He was not
trying to sell his relative on a deal.
He was trying to unsell him.
This called for the clever use of psychology, just as selling does. I had to be an unseller myself with my
grandson. We were talking about good
guys and bad guys, and he said he wanted to grow up and be a bad guy. I could see he was testing my reaction. I calmly accepted his statement and
proceeded to look at whether this was a goal he really wanted to aim for. I pointed out that bad guys often have to
spend a lot of time in jail, and they often lose the love of the people they
care about, and they make God angry at them.
He agreed it was not the best way to go. I had to unsell him on the idea of being a bad guy.
Boaz had
to unsell his relative on the idea of being the kinsman‑redeemer of
Ruth. He does this by first being a
seller, and telling him the good news.
He tells him that he is first in line to buy the property of
Elimelech. Boaz suggests that he use
his option of nearest relative, and he talks as if it is a matter of
indifference to him. He is as cool as
cool can be. He says, "I'm next in line, but only if you
don't want to buy it, I will. Why don't
you go ahead?" It all seems like a
mere matter of business, and the nearest kin says, "It sound good to
me. I will redeem it."
Now Boaz
uses his shock strategy, and he throws in the bad news. His relative is thinking this is a good deal
for me. I will have more property,
expanding income, and greater status.
Boaz says, "I just thought you ought to know that on the day you
buy the land you also acquire the widow of the man who owned the land, in order
to maintain his name." J. Vernon
McGee says, "He was using some of the wisdom of the serpent
here." Right away the man felt the
pressure of this demand. He was
frightened to think how close he was to making a deal that would back him into
more complexity than he could handle.
When it
was only land it was all to his advantage, but if he has to take Ruth and raise
up a child for her deceased husband, then that child will eventually get the
land anyway, and not his own children.
So he backed out of the deal, and he gave Boaz the right to redeem. Boaz was really doing his relative a favor
by presenting the case in such a way as to unsell him on the idea. He was clever because he got what he wanted,
but he did it, not by deception, but by a shocking and overwhelming
presentation of the truth with all of its implications. It was too much for the man to absorb, and
the complexity made it look too risky, and so he backed out.
Cleverness is the ability to skillfully work your way through complex
circumstances to a goal that is your aim to reach. Godly cleverness is aiming for a goal that is pleasing to
God. Boaz was blessed with godly
cleverness. This is a virtue that has
changed the entire world in which we live.
The example of one man's life that is astounding in its cleverness is
that of Cameron Townsend, the founder of Wycliffe Bible Translators. He died in April of 1982 at the age of
85. His career in missions started in
1917 as a Bible salesman in Guatamala.
He discovered that 60% of the people could not read the Spanish Bibles
he was selling, and so he, with no linguistic training, just settled down in a
small Indian village, and translated the New Testament into the Indian
language. He spent 11 years doing
that. His philosophy was, "Do one
thing and do it well." As he
learned more about the fact of hundreds of languages with no Bible, he founded
a school called The Summer Institute Of Linguistics.
He
learned another lesson in Guatamala, and that is to cooperate with the local
authorities. He was dragged before the
mayor of a town for distributing Bibles without permission. He apologized and never forgot that
missionaries are guests, and the government is the host. We must get their approval. This became a distinguishing characteristic
of his organization. The first copy of
the New Testament he sent to the president of Guatamala. He spent hours waiting to see officials to
get them involved in his projects.
There is no other mission movement like Wycliffe. It reports to the government, and not the
national church. He gets contracts with
the government, and so he is serving them.
He got
into Mexico where other missions were being rejected, and he even got the
government to pay for part of the work.
His workers had special favors not granted to other missionaries. There visas were made permanent when all
others had to get theirs renewed every 6 months. This pattern continued all through South America and the
Philippines. While other missions were
fighting for survival, they saw pictures of Townsend in the paper with the
Presidents, generals, and leaders of the land.
Other missionaries became jealous of this special treatment, but it was
his clever strategy that enabled him to achieve his goals.
In 50
years he went from one employee to 4,255 people, and became the largest
Christian mission in history. At the beginning of the 20th century there were only
67 languages that had the Bible. Now, some portion of the Bible exists in over
2000 languages. All because of his cleverness in doing what others did not see
as the key to reaching goals. Cleverness got the Word of God into the language
of millions, and cleverness got Ruth and Boaz into the Word of God. Cleverness committed to God is one of the
most powerful tools in history. We need to ask ourselves about what we are
doing to love God with all of our minds. What are we doing to use our minds and
cleverness to achieve goals for the glory of God and the good of His people?
May God motivate us to learn from this clever couple to be clever ourselves for
the kingdom of God.
6. THE POWER OF BEAUTY
Based on Esther 2:5‑18
In its 4,000
years of history only one woman became Emperor of China with absolute
power. She was Wu tes‑t'ien. She got to the throne of China for the same
reason Esther got to the throne of Persia.
She was a startling beauty. As a
young girl she was renowned for her beauty, and the Emperor made her his
concubine. Ordinarily a concubine like
her would be relegated to secluded quarters, after the death of the
Emperor. She would live her life out in
quiet retirement. She was so beautiful,
however, that the son of the Emperor also desired her as a concubine. She was not only beautiful, she was
clever. She bore him several sons, and
then promoted them among the leaders as the legitimate heirs to the
throne. She gained many political
allies, and so maneuvered behind the scenes that when the Emperor suffered a
crippling stroke, she was made Empress in 655 A.D. She was brilliant as well as beautiful, and was excellent in
administration. She cut taxes, won a
war, and had a united prosperous country under her long reign.
It is
rare, but the fact is, there are many cases in history of women doing an
excellent job of leading a whole nation.
One thousand years before Esther, in 1520 B.C. Hatshepst became the
first woman Pharaoh of Egypt, for 21 years she reigned, and glorious monuments
exist to praise her success. When
Julius Caesar marched into Egypt in 48 B.C. there was a vicious dispute going
on as to who the next ruler should be.
Should it be Pothinius or his sister Cleopatra. Cleopatra wanted to plead her case before
Caesar, but she knew if she tried to get to him her brother would have his
spies kill her. Nobody would dare
interfere with a gift for Caesar, however, and so a beautiful oriental carpet
was sent from her palace to Caesar.
Imagine his surprise when the carpet was unrolled and a 19 year old girl
stepped out to announce she was Cleopatra, the rightful Queen of Egypt. Caesar fell in love with her beauty, and she
did become the Queen.
If you
want to read of how Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Spain, England, and other nations,
were all ruled by greatly honored women, you can find these fascinating
histories in Mildred Boyds book, Rulers In Petticoats. My interest in these stories for our study
of Esther is that they confirm what we see to be a major theme of this book,
and that is, there is power in beauty.
Women know it, and that is why one of the largest industries in the
world is the beauty industry. Billions
are spent each year by women who know their greatest asset is in looking
beautiful. Brains and other qualities
are also vital, but it is beauty that opens the door for these other gifts to
get a chance to function.
Many
modern women admit they use beauty to their advantage in industry. They say they dress in a deliberate attempt
to win favor with those who have power, and thereby they are raised to
positions of power themselves. If
conflict is developing between them and a male boss, they can calm the waters
by coming on with some feminine charm.
In beauty contests there is nothing subtle and hidden. They are on open display to win prizes,
prestige, and power by means of beauty.
Many object to the whole emphasis on beauty as pagan perversion. They feel nothing is more secular than the
parading of female bodies before the world.
The book
of Esther, however, forces us to focus on this type of secular scene, for God
in His providence uses just such a beauty contest to save his people. It was Esther's beauty that got her into the palace, and into a
position of power where she could be used to save her people. No other quality but beauty could have
gotten her there. King Xerxes was not
looking for a female genius, or the best woman runner, or sports figure. He was looking for beauty. His demand for beauty was far beyond what is
demanded for a Miss America or Miss Universe contest. His contestants had to spend one solid year doing nothing but
beautifying themselves just to spend a night with him. After a year of using oils, spices, and ointments,
they would be as soft and smooth as a baby.
Esther
had to have been one of the most beautiful women to ever live. Out of all the beautiful girls of the
Empire, she won the favor of Hegai, the keeper of the women. Verse 15 indicates she was also voted Miss
Congeniality by the other girls, for she was favored by all who saw her. Now this really is a Cinderella story in
that, aside from her beauty, Esther had all sorts of disadvantages. She was a poor orphan in a foreign land, and
part of a minority group. Fortunately
for her she had a relative who took her in when her parents died. Mordecai was her cousin, but he adopted her
as his daughter. Here is a rare case of
cousins becoming father and daughter.
Her
Hebrew name was Hadassah. That is not a
name known to us, but the largest Jewish organization of women in the world is
called Hadassah, and they support the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Esther was her Persian name and this has
become more popular among Gentiles.
Esther means star. Estelle and
Stella come from the same root. Take female beauty out of this book, and the
star is gone. This poor adopted orphan
would never have been heard of in history had she not been blest with
beauty. Even with her beauty would she
have won the contest with all her competitors had she not spent a year using
all of the beauty aids available in her day?
The
Bible puts you in a real bind if you are dogmatically against beauty aids, for
they were part of the providential plan of God that saved the Jewish race. Dr. William Stidger, one of the great
American preachers, and author of over forty books, comes on strong in favor or
beauty aids. He writes, "As far as
I am concerned.....there is something sacred in the everlasting passion women
have for making themselves more beautiful.
I have no sympathy with these reformers who find nothing more important
to do than harangue women for using
rouge, powder, clothes, and what have you, to make themselves more
beautiful."
Certainly
we can all agree, there is nothing spiritual or superior about being
unclean, unkempt, and unpresentable for
public viewing. All of us enjoy beauty,
but like all good things, this too is so easily perverted. Conrad Hilton, the multimillionaire owner of
the Hilton hotel's around the world, was once married to Zsa Zsa Gabor. He discovered that with her, beauty was a
full time affair. She started at ten in
the morning before her dressing table.
He says it was a ritual with bottles, jars, and pots, both large and
small.
It could have been the rite of ancient Aztex
temple. After lunch and shopping it was
back to the dressing table for more make‑up, and agonizing decisions on
furs and jewelry. Hilton learned first hand
about the idolatry of beauty, and of how impossible it is to live with a woman
who is obsessed with vain‑glory.
So what
we have in the power of beauty is another paradoxical power. It can drive you to the heights of virtue,
or plunge you to the depths of vice. It
can lead to one praising God for this gift, or it can lead to pride that
competes with God. It has the power to
produce stories of victory, or stories of vanity. One of the reasons women are so effective in taking the Gospel
into all the world is there beauty.
Beauty attracts, and if the attracter points to God, her beauty is a
stepping stone into the kingdom of beauty, the kingdom of God. Many have the testimony of the poet‑
The might of one fair face
sublimes my love,
For it hath wean'd my heart from low desires;
Nor death I need, nor
purgatorial fires.
Thy beauty‑ante‑past
of joys above
Instructs me in the bliss
that saints approve,
For Lo! How good, how beautiful must be
The God that made so good a
thing as thee.
Is by
the power of beauty that women have had their fair share of the control of
history. By beauty the weak can master the strong, and Esther decides the
course that the absolute monarch will take.
The Biblical ideal of female beauty involves the mental as well as the
physical. Brainless beauty is a
joke. Prov. 11:22 says, "Like a
gold ring in a swine's snout is a beautiful woman without discretion." In other words, a beautiful woman has to use
the inside of her head as well as the outside to have any real power in her
beauty. Capito wrote, "Beauty
alone, may please, not captivate; If lacking grace, tis but a hookless
bait."
Beauty
can be superficial, and without depth, and this is what has led to the saying
that beauty is only skin deep. Prov.
31:30 agrees when it says, "Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a
woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." So we come again to the paradoxical nature of beauty. It can be vain, but it can also be a great
value. It is the paradoxical nature of
reality that leads to so much overreaction, and imbalance in our thinking. Because everything that is good can also be
bad, and perverted, so as to become a source of evil, there is the constant temptation
of abandoning what is good to avoid that danger. All through history Christians have abandoned what is good, and
left Satan free to use it as a tool for evil.
Just as tanks abandoned on the battlefield will be used by the enemy to
fight those who abandoned them, so beauty, when abandoned by Christians, will
be used by enemy forces against Christians.
The
value of studying the book of Esther is that it forces us to reevaluate our
views on the secular realm of life. It
forces us to look at beauty as a tool in the hands of God, and it forces us to
ask questions about beauty, as it did about pleasure. What we find when we search the Scripture is that beauty is no
minor issue in God's plan. It is basic
and vital to the plan of God, and not just for the saving of Israel, but for
saving all men from the pit of hell. It
is no surprise that God is portrayed in the Bible as ultimate beauty. After all, He is the author of all beauty. Someone said, "God is not only the all‑wise
and all‑powerful, but the all‑beautiful." In Psa. 27:4 all that David longs for is to
dwell in the house of the Lord and to behold the beauty of the Lord. The hope of all believers is to see the King
in His beauty. When that great event
takes place, we will all partake fully of His beauty, and become perfected, and
be like Him.
The goal
of God is that all the redeemed might be like Jesus. To be glorified is to be beautified with the beauty of
Jesus. But beauty is not just the goal,
it is a powerful element of the Christian life on the way to the goal. Three times the palmist says we are to
"Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness." The power of worship is in beauty. Beauty runs through the Bible, and we are
called upon to behold it over and
over. There is the beautiful robe, beautiful
women, a beautiful situation, a beautiful heaven, a beautiful crown, a
beautiful gate, and even the beautiful feet of those who proclaim the
Gospel. There are numerous beauties in
the temple, and there is the beauty of wisdom.
Jonathan
Edwards, one of the greatest American preachers, came to the conclusion, as he
studied the Bible, that beauty was really at the very heart of all
theology. We tend to think of beauty as
a secular subject, but he made it the heart of his sacred theology. This man changed the course of history in
America, and he made beauty the unifying theme of theology. He could see what most Christians never
notice. God is beautiful, and all that
He does is beautiful, and so the good and the beautiful are one. We could not love God if He was not
beautiful. If He was only powerful, He
could force us to do His will, but He could not force us to love Him. Love is a response we can only give to
beauty. If we had no revelation of
God's beauty in nature, or in the plan of redemption, we could not love
God. God could only win man's love by
the power of beauty.
It works
the other way also. Man is ugly in sin,
and so it would be hopeless for us to have fellowship with God, but Jesus became
a man, and by the beauty of His holiness, and the beauty of His sacrifice, the
way was opened for all to become beautiful, and, thereby acceptable to
God. Grasping the loveliness and the
supreme excellency of our Lord is the beginning of the victorious Christian
life. Those who do not see the beauty
of Christ will not have the motivating power to follow Him. They will be sidetracked constantly by the superficial beauties of
worldliness. All the fruits of the
spirit are expressions of the beauty of Jesus in human life.
Edwards
said, "God is the foundation and the fountain of all being and all
beauty." Sin is a deformity and
lack of beauty. All have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God. That
is, no one measures up to the beauty God intended for them. They are all defective. To be saved is to be restored to the place
where you have the right to begin the process of beautification. The doctrine of sanctification is really a
doctrine of beautification. To grow in
Christlikeness is the same as growing in beauty. Beauty is the measure of God's presence, just as ugliness is the
measure of God's absence. If a man is
insensitive to beauty, and can see no beauty in life, or in people, he is
alienated from God. The man who sees
most beauty, and is full of appreciation for it, is the man closest to God.
When all
beauty is gone, and all of life is ugly, that is when people take their own
life, for the loss of all beauty is hell.
In hell there will be no beauty, and in heaven there will be nothing but
beauty. One's relationship to beauty in
this life is the measure of the hell on earth, or the heaven on earth, that one
experiences. The only way to get
heaven on earth is to see the beauty of heavenly things, and the loveliness of
God's way. Only those captivated by the
power of beauty will be open to the working of God's Spirit. Edwards says that in the hierarchy of
values, first is existence, and then excellence; first is being and then
beauty. Anything defective in beauty is
defective in being.
The
ability to discern what is truly beautiful from what is only superficial beauty
is the key to the abundant life. Jesus
only used the word beautiful once in the New Testament record, and it was a
warning about the danger of superficial beauty. In Matt. 23:27‑28 we read, "Woe to you, Scribes and
Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like
whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full
of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.
So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full
of hypocrisy and iniquity. Here is
surface beauty. It has no depth, and is
mere veneer.
Superficial beauty is Satan's primary method of deception. All men chose what they feel is
beautiful. The first sin of choosing
the forbidden fruit was made very attractive.
All sin is made to seem beautiful.
Satan does not expect anybody to be tempted by the ugly. He knows God
made man in His image, and so He knows man is made to select the beautiful, and
shun the ugly. So he can only attract
men to evil by making it seem beautiful.
People chose folly for the same reason they chose wisdom. It looks good, and seems like the best way
to go. The liquor adds portray the
camaraderie of the bar. Sports and sex,
and all that seems adventurous is linked to this drug, for drunkenness is not
attractive or beautiful. They never
show the dead and twisted bodies of drunk drivers. They never show the ugliness
of the vomit, and the awful agony of families ruined by drinking. Evil can only survive by using the power of
beauty to attract.
God
wants us to chose beauty. We are made
to do so, and in Christ we are given the Holy Spirit, who will lead us to chose
the highest in beauty. Christian
morality and ethics are built around beauty.
Whatever is truly beautiful, and by truly beautiful I mean lasting
beauty, is right. What is wrong is that
which may have temporary beauty, but which leads to permanent ugliness. Christian maturity is growing in your
discernment so that you can see the whole, and not just the part. Much of life is beautiful in part, but awful
in the whole. A poison snake is beautiful in part, as are poison berries, but they
are not wise choices, for as a whole they are ugly and destructive. The power of evil lies in its use of
superficial and partial beauty to entice men to chose the way of folly. Evil is a parasite which depends on what is
good for its existence.
This
brings us back to Xerxes and Esther. It
is because Xerxes lives for beauty and pleasure that God was able to use his
choice for His own purpose. Pagan
people, all through history, have chosen what they feel is beautiful. This does lead to great evil because of
Satan's deception, but let us remember, the world is full of true beauty as
well, and even evil men often chose what is good because of its beauty. Esther was a beautiful and godly woman. Her beauty went to the heart, and was not
just skin deep. Her beauty would be
attractive to most all men in history, pagan or Christian. The point is, Satan is not the only one in
the beauty business. God's providence
also works through beauty. The beauty
of women is one of the key ways God has worked in history.
Esther
in her day, and in our day, one of the great stories is that of Mei‑ling,
better known as Madam Chaing Kai‑shek.
Chaing Kai‑shek was a Chinese war lord who was very successful in
battle. One of the Christian families
of China sent their daughter Mei‑ling to America to be educated. When she returned, she was active in the political and social affairs
of the nation. On one occasion Chaing
Kai‑shek's path crossed that of
Mei‑ling, and for him it was love at first sight. He could not resist the charm and beauty of
this Americanized daughter of the Orient.
We cannot go into the details of the long five year battle to win her
hand in marriage, but battle it was, for he was a godless immoral warrior
living with a concubine, and she was a beautiful Christian. His love for her beauty changed his history,
and he became a Christian. He went on
to become the Generalissimo of China, and together they did great things for
the cause of Christ. It never would
have happened without beauty.
What all
this means is that we need to keep a dual perspective on life, and especially
the secular life. Take beauty contest
for example. Yes there is lust and
perversion of beauty, but do not forget, God is not shut out of that realm of
life. God is working through beauty,
and often the winner of these contests is a dedicated Christian woman. She goes
on to touch many lives for Christ, and all because she was beautiful.
Not all
of us have the gift of beauty that attracts kings, generals, and wide
popularity, but all Christians have gifts that are beautiful. All the gifts of the spirit are attractive,
and they are designed to attract others.
Every Christian is to be a light in a dark world attracting the lost to
the Savior. Nothing is really finished
until it is fully beautiful, and that includes us. God will never be done with us until we are perfectly
beautiful. Beauty is our goal, and
beauty is what we need to pray for. The
more beautiful we are in every aspect of life, the more likely the providence
of God will work through us to accomplish His purpose, for there is power in
beauty.
7. PRAISE AND ROMANCE Based on Prov. 31:10‑31
We are
conditioned by life in our culture to be more conscious of the negative than the
positive. The news is largely a focus
on the negative, and we are made by the media to see life as tragic and full of
accidents, murder, and endless blunders of one sort or another. You have to go against the grain to say to
yourself, thank God for the millions who did not get murdered last night along
with myself. Praise God for all the
cars that didn't get hit. I rejoice in
the millions of homes that did not burn, and for the millions of children who
got home safely, and for the many businesses that did not lay people off. Good news is ten thousand times more common
than bad news, but it does not make the news because news is devoted to the
unusual.
What
this does, however, is make us a problem conscious people, and this is a
hindrance to praise, both of God and of our mates. There are dozens of things we appreciate about our mates, but
like the news reporter we sniff out the real story which is the negative, the
weakness, the blunder, the things that aggravate us. The husband comes home from work and he brings home the groceries
his wife asked him to pick up. But he
brought home the wrong kind of beans.
Now here is a wife who appreciates her husband. She appreciates his working and his
willingness to go out of his way to pick up groceries along with dozens of
other good points, but when she sees the wrong kind of beans, what is the news
flash?
Idiot husband blows it on beans.
That is
not what their life is all about at all‑the kind of beans they eat. But all of the dozens of valued
characteristics are pushed out of sight, and this minor blunder becomes the
Rock of Gibralter sitting on their kitchen counter. That is the news, and that is where we focus. Not on the 142 times he came home with
exactly the right order, but this present atrocious blunder. So what if it represents a mere fraction of
life? It is now the headlines for the
day. She makes a federal case out of
his stupidity, and he forgets all he admires about her and says she never
appreciates anything he does. In
seconds they have an honest to goodness news worthy conflict.
This is
what news is: the unusual exalted to
the level of such prominence that it dominates your consciousness. This is what people are made to do, and
mates often do it for nothing. Has your
mate ever said, "You never do anything to help me!" This comes right after she has asked you to
pick up a piece of lint off the floor.
Because you have a higher chair and a lamp in your hands you say,
"I'll get it later." That
lint becomes the news. It is all that
matters now. The sun, the moon, the
stars, and all your labor of love over the years is blotted out, and you are
nothing but a non‑picker up of lint.
It is not all lint for all time, but that particular lint which is now
the news.
What I
am trying to illustrate is that as mates we become problem oriented rather than
praise oriented, and this distorts our perspective so that we see life like the
news. The mini‑negatives stand
out like an eclipse of the sun, and the maxi‑positives fade into the
background like a sliver of a moon.
Reversing this perspective is not easy, but it is the Biblical goal, and
Christians need to work at the praise perspective if they want the blessing of
Christ in their union rather than the burden of the culture. The question is, what do you focus on in
your marriage‑the newsworthy or the praiseworthy?
The
difference is that the praiseworthy partner has their focus on the usual and
the typical and the commonplace which is in no way newsworthy, but which is
what their life is all about. The
positive values they share day by day that make life enjoyable. The massive number of little things you
appreciate, but tend to take for granted.
The Bible authorizes us to be people of praise, not just in our worship
of God, but in our relationships on the human level. In our text of Prov. 31 we see a marvelous wife and mother, and
this is a hymn of praise to her. In
verse 28 her children bless her and her husband praises her. In verse 30 it states that a woman who fears
the Lord is to be praised. Verse 31
says, "Let her works bring her praise at the city gate."
In the
space of four verses this woman; this wife, and this mother is praised three
times with the same Hebrew word that is used for the praise of God all through
the Old Testament. No other person in
the Old Testament receives this much praise, and what this leads to is another
example of how the romantic and the religious are linked. The nearest thing there is to the love of
God is the love of a man for a woman.
That is why marriage is used in the Bible to illustrate the love
relationship of God and His people. The
nearest you can get is the love of a husband and his wife. The language of praise to God cannot be
matched except by the praise of a man for the woman he loves.
This
same Hebrew word halal is used of the pretty woman in the Song of Solomon 6:9
where it says that even the Queen and all the other women praise her. Then in 6:10 she is described: "Who is this that appears like the
dawn, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, majestic as the stars in the
procession." That is wild
extravagant language usually only acceptable in reference to God, but allowed by God on the lips of a man in
love with the girl he considers the most beautiful of beings on earth. It would seem that God permits men to come
close to idolatry in their love for, and praise of, their wives. The language of human love uses the same
vocabulary as is used for the love of God.
I adore you.
I worship the ground you stand on.
You are my angel.
You are the light of my life.
It's heaven to be in your arms.
Even
knowing that men would often choose their love for a woman over their love for Him,
God still permits this kind of love to be acceptable. Adam chose Eve over God.
David chose Bathsheba over God's will.
Many others in the Bible did the same thing, all of which has lead to a
vast literature of an anti‑feminine nature blaming women for all the
evil's of the world. They can even
sound valid until you look at the attitude of God. In spite of all the risks God promotes the devotion of men to
women, and especially their wives.
Prov.
5:18, using the same Hebrew word for rejoicing in the Lord, says, "May you
rejoice in the wife of your youth."
Paul went as far as language can go when he wrote in Eph. 5:25,
"Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself
up for her." It is shocking, and
it would border on blasphemy if it was not clearly Biblical that we are to
present our bodies as living sacrifices unto our wives. We are to rejoice in our wives always just
as we are to rejoice in the Lord always.
We are to offer unto them also the sacrifice of praise.
God will
not tolerate any rival among the gods, yet He will tolerate and even encourage
you to treat your wife like a goddess.
God has exalted romance to the highest level in His Word. The essence of worship is praise, and the
essence of romance is praise. It is the
beauty of God's being and His loving acts that motivate us to praise Him, and
it is the beauty of the female and her loving acts that motivate us to praise
her. Just as we are happiest in our
relationship to God when we are praising Him, so we are happiest in our
relationship to our wives when are praising them.
The
formula for revival and a renewed fire in our love for God is praise. The same formula is the key to renewing the
fires of romance in our marriage. Praise
is a form of power that works wonders on all levels. The secret to keeping the fire of romance alive is praise. Those mates who cease to praise can plan on
living with a lot of cold ashes, but those who practice praising will be kept
warm for as long as they live. To
praise is to love. Anything, or anyone,
you love you will praise. If I love a
certain kind of candy I will praise it, and let others know of my
appreciation. If I think Estes Park,
Colorado is a place I love to visit, I will praise it and tell others of its
beauty. Love is expressed by
praise.
Those
who do not love the one I love will see their defects. They will focus on the news worthy aspects
of their being and doing. The matters
that have gossip value. They talk too
much, or they are too shy, or they lack maturity, or they lack depth, or on and
on. But love is blind to the defects
because of the light of what is praiseworthy.
It blinds them to the minor defects, but reveals to them the beauty of
the major values. The highest level of
romance is when all the negative realities are as nothing, and you are
overwhelmed by all that is praiseworthy.
This is
what we call falling in love, for when this happens you seem somewhat crazy to
everybody else. Your parents see all
the defects and weaknesses of the one you have fallen in love with. They will try to subtly warn you of the
these negatives realities. But it is
like trying to get you to feel bad that there is a spot on the sun. You do not care, for there is light and
warmth to meet your every need. This is
the state where people say you are walking on air, and your head is in the
clouds. It is so heavenly that you care
nothing for earthly realities. This is
the height of the love state of romance, for it is totally praise
dominated. This is the state that the
great love song of the Bible is all about.
The Song of Songs is eight chapters of almost continuous praise. And the good news is that the male is
praised by the female also, and so praise is a two way street.
The Song
of Songs is a book where rejoicing, delighting, and praising are the
theme. The romantic and religious life
are so intertwined that all through history this song has been applied to both
the love of man for God, and the love of male and female. It is the Song of Songs‑the greatest
song of all, and there can be no separation of the romantic and the religious,
for they both thrive equally on praise.
The male is always saying, "How beautiful you
are my darling." Then he goes into
a rapture of praise as he describes the loveliness of every part of her body.
The female returns the praise by saying, "How
handsome you are my lover, oh how charming!" Then she launches into a song of adoration of all his body parts,
and ends up, "He is altogether lovely."
The
bottom line is this: God is revealing
through this great romantic song that they key to romance is praise. The female gets most of the praise, and the
words for praise are used most often for her, but the fact is, it works both
ways, and it becomes a basic principle of life that praise is what kindles
love, and it is praise that keeps love glowing in any relationship. The praiser is the true lover. Now this has implications for all of life,
for if love is the highest virtue without which, as Paul says in I Cor. 13, all
other virtues are worthless, this means the single most important part of our
personality is our spirit of praise.
To be
spirit‑filled means to be filled with a spirit of praise. To be Christlike means to be ever seeking
for ways to praise. To praise is to
love. How do you love your children? There are many ways, but you will fall short
of the best if you do not learn to praise them. That is the basic need children have. They need to be loved for who they are, and praise can give them
that assurance that they are worthy even if they are not superior and able to
do all things well. A child raised with
praise will be a love child with a strong sense of self‑esteem.
How do
you love people that you may have no depth relationship with? Maybe they are people at work that you know
only in that setting. The latest
management books like The One‑Minute Manager is telling managers all over
the country to look for what people are doing right and give them a one minute
praising. Production will go up and the
atmosphere of the work place will be much better, and everybody wins. This is a Biblical principle being applied
in daily life. The news worthy will tear
you down, but the praiseworthy will build you up. Look for all the mistakes and errors, and there are always more
than enough in fallen world, and you will destroy relationships. But if you look beyond them to the
praiseworthy, and let people know what they are appreciated for, you will build
relationships and a positive atmosphere.
A praising personality is the greatest asset in any relationship.
Tracy
Cabot in her book How To Keep A Man In Love With You Forever stresses the need
for praise. She says the secret of long
married women is they flatter their husbands and tell them they are
wonderful. Drug addicts, she points
out, come back again and again to their drugs because they get predictable and
repeatable pleasure on demand. The goal
of a wife is to get her husband addicted to her praise. He will keep coming back to her again and
again, for he will feel she is a dependable source of pleasure. If all he gets is, "You lazy bum,"
in his face, there will be a lessening of that magnetic attraction. The fact is, he may at times be just that‑a
lazy bum. But the question is, is this
a newsworthy fact‑that is a small part of his total lifestyle, and if so,
is that what you desire to focus on and be miserable, or will you focus on the larger picture, the
praiseworthy, that which made you fall in love with him?
A focus
on the negative will depreciate your relationship and make it of less
value. But a focus on the positive will
appreciate it. Your home appreciates in
value so that it is worth more this year than last year. The best investments are in those things
which appreciate. Marriage can go
either way, and the deciding factor is the power of praise. If you want your marriage to appreciate in
value, then you have to focus on what you appreciate about each other and
praise your mate for those praiseworthy values. The alternative is to start your marriage like a Cadillac and let
it depreciate by being critical until all that is left is the junk value. You determine by praise, or the lack of it,
whether your marriage is a house appreciating in value, or a car depreciating
in value. Is your mate most often in a
cave of criticism, or on a pedestal of praise?
Gary
Smalley in his book The Joy Of Committed Love tells of the crisis he had to go
through to see the light. He is
watching the Saturday afternoon football game, and his wife goes into the
kitchen and comes back with sandwiches for his three children, and there he sat
a few feet away and he gets nothing. In
a matter of seconds he is fighting resentment.
After all, he is the bread winner in this home, and if anyone deserves a
sandwich it is him. He in anger went
and made his own sandwich, but he could not get rid of the resentment. After letting it burn a few days he decided
to confront his wife on the issue. He
asked her why she did not make him a sandwich last Saturday during the
game. He was not prepared for how fast
the pieces of this puzzle were put together by her response.
"Are
you serious," she asked? "Do
you realize that every time I make you a sandwich, you say something critical
about it?" 'Norma, you didn't give
me enough lettuce....Is this avocado ripe?...You put too much mayonnaise on
this.....Hey, how about some butter?...Well, its a little dry'.... "Maybe
you've never realize it, but you have had a critical statement for every
sandwich I ever made. I just wasn't up
to being criticized the other day. It
wasn't worth it. I don't enjoy being
criticized."
Now he
was not sure he didn't like it better when he was in the dark. The light hurt, and he realized it was
true. He had sown criticism, and now he
was reaping and empty plate. From that
time on he began to praise Norma for every sandwich she made, and his pleasant
observation is that he has never been left out again. Praise is a powerful tool of positive productivity. Deprive any relationship of praise and you
will suffocate it, for praise is the oxygen that keeps it alive and
burning. The number one way to rekindle
the flame of romance is to stop looking for the newsworthy, and start looking
for the praiseworthy. Give up on your
critical spirit, which is our fallen natures way of trying to bring about
change, and follow the ways of praise which leads to change for the better.
Secular
studies confirm what the Bible says. It
is a principle that God built into human relationships. The praising teacher has the best
students. The praising boss has the
best workers. The praising leader has
the best followers. The praising mate
has the best marriage. It is not a
gimmick, but it is a law of life, and Christians are to obey this law to the
highest degree, for this is the key way by which we please God and find
happiness in all relationships.
This is
such an obvious and universal law that even many secular authors have
discovered it. Why is it that many
Christians fail to live by it, and praise their mates often? For the same reason they neglect the praise
of God. They are too preoccupied and
just do not take the time to think about what they have to be thankful for,
both to God and the one they love.
Charlie Tremendous Jones, the Christian motivational speaker and author,
says that nobody can be completely positive about all of life all the time, but
all of us can be engaged in a process of learning, growing, and developing
positive attitudes.
If we
are not so engaged, we are being self‑centered and deserve the poor
relationships we have. Charlie Shedd,
one of America's most famous marriage enrichment authorities, says that most
people spend most of their time thinking about themselves and just don't bother
to consider the role that others play in their lives. They seldom express praise for all the ways they are benefited
and enriched by others. This ideal wife
and mother in Prov. 31 is praised to high heaven. She is on a pedestal of praise.
But many wives who do their best never receive a compliment. We know this because case histories are in
most every book written about marriage problems of Christian mates.
If I,
who have read several hundred books on the subject over the years, and who has
taught a number of marriage enrichment classes dealing with the importance of
complimenting your mate often, still neglect this area of praise, then I know
it is almost universally neglected.
Jesus knew our weakness, and knew it was possible for His disciples to
even forget and neglect to praise Him for His sacrifice on the cross that made
their eternal salvation possible. That
is why He gave us the ordinance of communion.
He said, do this in remembrance of me, and by doing this made it clear
that we can't rely on our own will and memory to be a praise‑ful
person. We need a reminder to keep us
aware of the need to never forget and forsake praise.
Applying
this to marriage, we need to set aside a time, once a week, once a month, like
we do communion. The frequency
depending on the degree of your weakness, but periodically reading the love
portions of the Bible. Prov. 31, the
Song of Solomon, and I Cor. 13. We need
perpetual reminders that the essence of life is love, and the essence of love
is praise, for both romantic and religious love. God expects us to be ever growing in both realms, and be praisers
of Him, and be praisers in romance.
8. THE PRAISES OF LOVE Based on Song of Songs
A
neurologist was flattered when a patient in a mental hospital said to him,
"We like you better than any other doctor we have ever had." "But why?" asked the doctor, with
a smile, showing his delight.
"Because," replied the inmate, "You are more like one of
us." Sometimes flattery can be a
flop. Even if it is sincere, it can come out wrong. Like the woman who said to her pastor, "That message was
like water to a drowning man." He
thought she meant it as a compliment, but he could never be sure. Flattery can be used to deceive people in so
many ways that it usually has a negative meaning. The Jewish Talmud says, "A community where flattery prevails
will end in exile."
Almost
every reference to flattery in the Bible shows it to be a tool of evil. Paul wrote in I Thess. 2:5, "We never
used words of flattery..." When
Paul said he was all things to all men, he did not mean he was even a
flatterer. Paul considered this to be
deceitful and not an acceptable tool in evangelism. It could be so used, however, for we all like to think well of
ourselves, and we are always delighted with anyone else who can perceive our
good points. So we are all susceptible
to flattery. Benjamin Franklin said,
A flatterer never seems
absurd:
The flattered always takes
his word.
In the
realm of romance flattery is a dangerous weapon, for it is possible to so love
the nice things that are said that one soon believes he, or she, loves the
sayer of them. The sayer is even himself deceived, and many people get married,
not because they love each other, but because they love themselves, and enjoy
being told how wonderful they are.
Flattery can be used to deliberately deceive for the sake of immoral
gratification as well, and many a foolish girl lets sweet talk her life sour.
Shakespeare said, "You play the Spaniel and think with waging of
your tongue to win me." A dogs
waging tail is an honest expression of love, but a waging tongue of flattery is
more often a tool of deceit. David portraying
a society which is totally corrupt says in Psalms 12:2, "Everyone utters
lies to his neighbor with flattering lips and a double heart they
speak." Lying and flattery are
like partners, as we see in Prov. 26:28, "A lying tongue hates its
victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin."
Groucho
Marx was an expert as using flattery in a negative way. He was leaving a party he felt was
exceedingly dull. He said to the
hostess, "I've had a wonderful evening, but this wasn't it." Sometimes the truth does need to be told
subtly. Samuel Johnson said to an
author, after reading his book, "Your manuscript was both good and
original, but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is
original is not good." That is telling it like it is, and is not really a
negative use of flattery. The person to
be wary of is the person who agrees with everything you say and do. Such flattery will hinder, rather than help.
How can
we reconcile the negatives of flattery with the positives of compliments and
honest appreciation? If I tell a person
they look sharp, am I guilty of flattery, and using my tongue for evil? If I see value, talents, and gifts in
people, must I keep silent because of the danger of flattery? Definitely not. The Song of Solomon is filled with constant compliments coming
from the mouths of lovers. They flatter
each other, as most lovers do, as being
the two most beautiful people on the planet.
The complimentary language of lovers is essential to their love. Without beautiful words they would have a
hard time expressing their love. Yet,
they may use all the same words that are used by the flatterer. What is the difference?
The
difference between good and evil in so many areas of life is in love. Love makes the difference. If I have the tongue of men and of angels,
but have not love,
I am sounding brass and a clanging symbol. All the evil of flattery is a matter of nice
words without love. When hate and
deceit speak, they may use the best words for their evil ends. Evil needs good words to get anywhere. The evil of flattery could not exist without
the use of good words, and so evil uses the very vocabulary of love.
When
love speaks, it looks for the best in everyone. It looks for a way of being constructive and encouraging. Jesus was a master at the art of
complimenting. Instead of blasting
sinners with words of condemnation, He said, "Go and sin no more,"
expressing confidence in their ability to do so. He even said to the Gentile Centurion, "A greater faith have
I not seen in Israel." Jesus even
complimented His enemies. He knew the Pharisees were good students of the
law. He taught that what they said was
good, even if they didn't follow it, so He said to do what they say, but not
what they do. He complimented sinners
by eating with them, and He did the same with the Pharisees. Jesus could find good points in all
people. Jesus was not opposed to any
man, or any group, but only to the falsehoods that corrupted them.
A legend
is told about Jesus walking through the gates of Jerusalem. He saw a crowd gathered around a dead
dog. The Scribes passing by kicked it
with contempt, but Jesus stopped and said, "Behold the pearly whiteness of
its teeth." Jesus could find
something to compliment even in a dead dog.
The reason He could is because He loved all men, and all creatures. Love makes the difference.
Lust,
however, uses the same words. In Prov.
7:21‑22 we read of how the harlot ensnares a man. "With much seductive speech she
persuades him; with her smooth talk she compels him. All at once he follows her, as an ox goes to the
slaughter..." We see that smooth
talkers can be female as well as male.
When words are an expression of true feeling, they are beautiful and
positive. When they are used as a
method of getting our own way, they are negative and ugly.
Someone
said there is really nothing remarkable about love at first sight. It is after people have looked at each other
for years that love is really remarkable.
True love goes on giving appreciation of the one loved. Therefore, compliments and praise are a
perpetual aspect of the lover's language.
When lovers cease to compliment one another, they are losing their
admiration, and taking each other for granted.
Healthy love never stops singing the praises of the lover.
In the
Song Of Solomon we have a song of lover's praise. The Shepherd and Shepherdess are constantly complimenting one
another on their beauty. We also have
the flattery of King Solomon, however, who tries by sweet talk to persuade the
Shulemite girl to forsake her lover and become his.
In
verses 9‑11, many feel we have an example of the kings flattery. It does differ from the language of the
Shepherd lover. Solomon's flattery
revolves around the externals and deals with the man made adornments of
beauty. Solomon compares her to a mare
of Pharaoh's chariots, and speaks much of jewelry. The compliments of the Shepherd and the Shepherdess to each other
all revolve around natural beauty. The
contrast is between the beauty of the kings palace, and all the man made
objects, and the beauty of nature so precious to these two country lovers.
These
two have no love for the adornments of the city. Their hearts are filled with the pleasant realities of God's
creation. In verse 12 she tells of the context she is in: The king is on his couch. A couch of fancy gold embroidery, no doubt,
but she dreams only of the green grass of the field, so precious to the sheep,
and so beautiful for the Shepherd lover, who rests on it under the shade of a
tree. The couch is green for them, and
not gold, like that of the palace. It
is green and natural, and to them this is far superior. In verse 16 the Shulamite girl says to her
lover, "Our couch is green."
In verse 17 she says, "The beams of our house are cedar, and our
rafters are pine." Again, she
imagines looking up from the grass at the trees around them, and she longs for
that kind of roof over her head, rather than the fancy roof of Solomon's
palace. God's natural roof was her delight.
The
contrast in this song between the natural and the manufactured is one that men
struggle with constantly. It is always
a danger for men to become so enamored with the products of their own
cleverness that they live in an artificial world, and love only the handiwork
of their own creation rather than that of the Author of all natural beauty. If
we truly love Jesus Christ, we will love His handiwork, and enjoy with Him that
which He has designed for our pleasure, as well as His own. Those who get so involved with the creations
of man are allowing themselves to be flattered away from full devotion to the
Creator. If a Christian gets so taken
up with jewels, furs, clothes, and all of the externals of man's inventions, he
will tend to let the internal beauty of the soul slide, and become a conformer
to the world.
This was
the temptation of the Shulamite girl, but she had no ear for the flattery of
the world. She longed only for union
with her true love. In 2:16 we see the
theme of her song:
"My beloved is mine and
I am his, he pastures his
flocks among the
lilies." The poet puts it:
Yes, He is mine! And nought of earthly things,
Not all the charms of pleasure, wealth, or power,
The fame of heroes, or the
pomp of kings,
Could tempt me to forgo His love an hour.
Go, worthless world, I cry,
with all that's Thine!
Go, I my Savior's am, and He
is mine.
This is
the theme running through the whole song as we see love's compliments win out over
enticing flattery. In verse 7 the Shulamite girl refers to her
Shepherd as you whom my soul loves. She loves him internally and intensely, and
her flame burns for Him alone, and that is why she so desperately longs to be
out of the palace, and in His presence.
To us it may not sound very romantic to forsake a palace for the
environment of a flock of sheep, but true love desires the presence of the
lover whatever the environment.
Our
Shepherd lover is preparing a palace for His bride that where He is we may be
also, but it is the person and not the place that is primary. The Shulamite girl dreamed of the flocks,
tents, grassy fields, and open forest, because that is where her true love was. Where your treasure is there will your heart
be also. Most girls would feel
obligated to yield to the king in such a setting. He was offering her everything that wealth could buy. He tells her in verse 11, he will make her
beautiful jewelry with gold studded with silver. It seems almost rude to turn down such an offer. What good is the grass and trees and
flowers? They fade away, but jewels are
lasting, and diamonds are supposedly a girl's best friend.
The
Shulamite, however, chooses to be rude and sings nothing of the joys of jewelry.
She has no praise for the palace, but longs only for her true love, the
Shepherd. She does not indulge in any
flattery of Solomon and his offer, but rejects it by rude neglect. Andre
Maurois, the French writer who has much to say about love, says that a true
lover must often be rude to be wise. He
tells of a young man who was invited to an estate in Normandy, and the daughter
of the house showed an obvious liking for him. He could tell that the parents
hoped he would marry her, but he did not find her beautiful, and had no desire
to be tied to her for life.
One
evening as the stars were shining, and the apple blossoms were in bloom, he
expressed a wish to take a moonlight stroll.
"What a lovely idea," said the hostess,
"Marie will go with you." He was half‑trapped already, but as
they walked though the orchard she stumbled, and instinctively he caught
her. She was in his arms and their lips
were close. "Ah," she said,
"I always knew you loved me."
To undeceive her he needed to be ruthlessly rude, but he could not. Their lips closed in the fatal kiss. When
they went in they were engaged, and he spent the rest of his life with a woman
he did not really love. Maurios says,
when it comes to love, whenever you think it necessary, be savagely rude.
It is
folly to become enamored with one you do not love. The Shulamite girl was too wise for that, and did not let the
wealth and flattery of Solomon sway her from her true love. So the Christian must sometimes be rude to
the appeals of the world. All that
offers to win our love and loyalty is vanity of vanities. The world can be an enticing lover, but
those who really love the Lord Jesus, and have set their affections on things
above, will not be flattered into its arms.
What is the world with all
its store?
'Tis but a bitter sweet;
When I attempt to pluck the
rose,
A pricking thorn I meet.
Here perfect bliss can ne'er be found,
The honeys' mix'd with gall:
Midst changing scenes and
dying friends,
Be Thou my all in all.
Author unknown
The
Shulamite girl ignores the kings offer of precious jewels, and she sings the
praises of her Shepherd lover in verse 13, and says, "A bundle of myrrh is
my well beloved unto me." Myrrh
was carried by women of the East in little bags on their bosom to perfume
themselves. It made them feel good and
smell fragrant. Right below their own
nose they were ever conscious of its presence, and the Shulamite girl says that
her Shepherd lover was just like her bag of myrrh to her. What a compliment: To be ever in the mind of your lover. Myrrh was a very precious perfume. It was one of the gifts given to Christ at His birth, and was
symbolic of His own preciousness.
In verse
14 the Shulamite says her beloved is to her a cluster of camphire, or henna
blossoms, as other versions have it.
These were clusters of beautiful white and yellow flowers that women used
to adorn their homes and their own persons.
This girl paid her lover the highest compliment she could in the
language of her culture. Her lover was
everything pleasant and precious to her.
Whenever we sing a song in which we praise God for what He is to us, we
are joining the Shulamite girl and turning her solo into a chorus of spiritual
flattery, which we call praise. Praise
is positive because it is flattery from a heart of love. It is an expression of true feeling. Those who truly love Christ and feel loved
by Him will be people of praise. You
cannot love Christ and not praise
Him.
C. C.
Colton adds another perspective when he says, "Imitation is the
sincerest flattery." If we truly feel that our Shepherd lover is
the fairest of 10,000, we will strive
to be like him, and imitate him. We
will want the beauty of Jesus to be seen in us. It is only flattery if we sing
of His glory, and then continue to walk in darkness. It is like saying to someone, "I just love your new
suit," and then turning to another and saying, "I wouldn't be caught
dead in that." What we really
think is beautiful, we strive to
imitate. True love for Christ
does not just praise Him for what He is, it strives to become what He is. Lovers long to be alike. William Kirkpatrick put the true lovers
desire in poetry, and it fits so well the conflict of the Shulamite girl.
Oh, to be like Thee! Blessed Redeemer,
This is my constant longing and prayer.
Gladly I'll forfeit all of
earth's treasures,
Jesus, Thy perfect likeness to wear.
Oh, to be like Thee! Oh, to be like Thee!
Blessed Redeemer, pure as Thou art!
Come in Thy sweetness, come
in Thy fullness,
Stamp Thine own image deep on my heart.
May God
help each of us to resist the false, but subtle, flattery of the world, and to
offer up to our wonderful Lord the true praise of love.
9. THE FRAGRANCE OF LOVE Based on Song of Songs 1:1‑17
Napoleon
and Josephine adored violets. She often
wore the extremely expensive violet scented perfume as her trade mark. Only the wealthiest people could afford it.
When she died in 1814, Napoleon planted violets at her grave, and just before
his exile to St. Helena he made a pilgrimage to it. He picked some of the violets and put them in a locket which he
wore around his neck to the end of his
life. Here were lovers who were linked
by their noses, and a special fragrance kept that memory of their love alive
even after death.
Solomon
would not be surprised by this, for his love song is filled with the fragrance
of love. From the beginning to the end
the nose is playing a prominent role in the romance. Solomon may not have known
that we breathe about 23,000 times a day and move 438 cubic feet of air. He may not have known that man is capable of
detecting over 10,000 different odors, but Solomon knew that the sense of smell
has more to do with love than most people ever dream of. His love song is filled with perfume,
incense, fragrant spices, flower and spring garden smells of all kinds, and
also the smells of trees, plants and fruits. I doubt if there are so many
references to romantic smells, in so short a space, in any literature on earth.
Rather
surprising is the fact that the first reference to perfume refers to the male.
In verse 3 the female lover says pleasing is the fragrance of your
perfume. Not only is his wearing of
perfume surprising, but it is plural‑perfumes. The male lover has more than one kind, and he is giving her
multiple pleasant sensations. The
mystery is easily solved by a study of the role of perfume in the ancient
world. We use deodorants, after shave,
and cologne today, but we are conservatives compared to the ancient world where
men use more perfume than women do in our day.
John
Trevenar in, The Romantic Story of Scent writes, "The men of the ancient
world were clean and scented."
Keep in mind, we are talking about the Biblical world where it was hot
and dusty, and you could perspire at the drop of a toga. Smelling good was so much of a part of that
world that we have detailed records of how they perfumed themselves, and even
washed their clothes in perfume. Two of
the three gifts the wise men brought to Jesus were frankincense and myrrh. These were two of the oldest and most
expensive perfumes in the ancient world.
When Mary and Joseph fled to Egypt they were hot, and Joseph would have
used as much of the perfume as Mary, for it was vital to a man to smell good.
We could
spend hours just looking at the evidence to confirm the reality of Solomon's
song, but let me just share one paragraph from Diane Ackerman's, A Natural
History Of The Senses, which was published in 1990.
Ancient he‑men were
heavily perfumed. In a way, strong
scents
widened their presence,
extended their territory. In the pre‑Greek
culture of Crete, athletes
anointed themselves with specific aromatic
oils before the games. Greek writers of around 400BC recommended
mint for the arms, thyme for
the knees, cinnamon, rose, or palm oil
for the jaws and chest,
almond oil for the hands and feet, and marjoram
for the hair and
eyebrows. Egyptian men, attending a
dinner party
would receive garlands of
flowers and their choice of perfumes at
the door. Flower petals would be scattered
underfoot, so they could
make a fragrance stir when
guests trod on them. Statues at these
banquets often spurted
scented water from their several orifices.
Before retiring, a man would
crush solid perfume until it was an
oily powder and scatter it
onto his bed so that he could absorb its
scent while he slept. Homer describes the obligatory courtesy
of offering visitors a bath
and aromatic oils. Alexander the Great
was a lavish user of both
perfumes and incense, and was fond
enough of saffron to have
his tunics soaked in its essence.
Her
elaborate research has led to dozens of pages of this kind of information, yet
she says, as a world authority on
odors, "The most scent‑drenched poem of all times is the Song of
Solomon." This song makes the
fragrance of love a major issue, and Christians who do not heed this revelation
lose a valuable tip. For centuries
Christians ignored this book and did not take it seriously. They developed the idea that it was worldly
to use perfume and smell good. They
felt it was more holy to be dirty. The
Puritans did not go that far, but they did reject perfume as worldly. To this day, the nose is not honored in
romance, and the result is many a Christian couple damages their love
life.
If God says the nose is part of His design
for love, who are we to ignore the Designers plan? In some cultures lovers kiss with their noses, and their word for
kiss means smell. They get great pleasure in breathing in the odor of the one
they love. In Madagascar they believe that every soul has it own
unique scent. And when they kiss they
breathe in that unique odor of their loved one, and mingle their souls. They experience a spiritual and physical
intimacy. In the Philippines some have
so refined their sense of smell that by sniffing a pocket handkerchief they can
tell if it belongs to their lover. They
send bits of linen to each other when they are separated so they can keep each
other in mind by inhaling each others scent.
We laugh at nose kissing, but it is because
we have little awareness of the role of the nose in romance. When Ruth went to meet Boaz and stimulate
his interest as taking her as a wife, her mother‑in‑law Naomi gave
her good advice in Ruth 3:3. She told her
to wash and put on perfume. A bad
impression on the nose is a sure way to quench the spark of romance. William Erb put it in poetry.
The shades of night were
falling
Around us thick and fast:
I stood beside Matilda
The first time and the last.
I tried to give her kisses
According to etiquette,
But she had eaten onions,
Me thinks I smell them yet.
If he
kissed you once, will he kiss you again, is not a modern question. That poem was written in 1897, and similar thoughts
go back into ancient history. On the
other hand, it has also always been true that, "Aroma is beauty, and
beauty is the stimulant to passion." The question, of course, is what does
this obvious truth in the realm of romance have to do with our religious and
spiritual love? The Bible makes it
clear that the nose is important in religious love, just as it is in the realm
of romance. The Jews were proud of
their Semitic noses. Levi Haytha said,
"The Supreme Architect created man with a spout over his mouth, and it
constitutes his beauty and his pride."
The nose was important in the worship of God, and still is to the Jews
today. Zohr wrote, "What would the
world do without fragrance? We would
pine away without it, and so we burn myrtle at the conclusion of the
Sabbath."
If we go
back to the Old Testament days, we see that the sacrifices of animals was a
major part of their worship. If you
enjoy meat cooking on a grill, then you can imagine the delicious odors as
cattle and sheep were cooked on the altar by the hundreds and even
thousands. The smell was
magnificent. We know this for Scripture
indicates that God enjoyed the smell of the offerings. When Noah left the ark, and made his
sacrifices to God, we read in Gen.8:21, "And Jehovah smelled the delicious
odor and said I will never do it again."
He promised never to destroy the world again with a flood.
All
through the Old Testament sweet and delicious odors were to fill the
temple. Incense was to mingle with the
sweet‑smelling offerings. The
reason we enjoy a good roast cooking, and sweet perfume, is because we are made
in the image of God who also delights in pleasant fragrance. He is the author of sense of smell, and all
the fragrant aromas in the world of nature.
He is also the author of the very first perfume recipe known to
man. It was a very exclusive secret
formula to be used in the temple, and for anointing holy objects, and the
priests. The formula and the
description of its uses can be found in Ex. 30:22‑28. It was a sacred formula that could only be
used for the special purposes that God stipulated. Any other use was strictly forbidden.
Worship
and pleasant smell were linked together.
When the Jews went after other gods, they would burn incense to
them. They could not conceive of any
truly religious love and devotion without the presence of pleasant
fragrance. There are hundreds of text
in Scripture dealing with various kinds of perfume and aromatic materials. The main point of it all is, pleasant smell
is associated with religious love just as it is with romantic love. Prov, 27:9 says, "Oil and perfume
rejoice the heart." All
relationships are made better with the presence of pleasant odor.
When we
move into the New Testament, we discover that Paul had a real nose for nice
smells. He expressed his thanks to the
Philippians Christians for their support by writing in Phil. 4:18, "I am
filled, having received from Epaphroditus the gifts you sent, a fragrant
offering, a sacrifice acceptable and pleasing to God." Paul connected spiritual love, and the
sacrifice of Christ, with a sweet smell in Eph. 5:2. "And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up
for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God." Our great Shepherd lover was never more
fragrant than when he breathed out His last breath and said, "It is
finished." God did not let His Son
see corruption in the tomb. Lazarus was
stinking after four days in the tomb, but no foul odor was permitted to come
upon the body of our Lord. He became,
by His death, the eternal lover, whose fragrance is like that of an eternal
rose.
When
Jesus came to the home of Mary and Martha just shortly before the crucifixion,
we read of this unique event in John 12:3, "Mary took a pound of costly
ointment of pure nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped His feet with
her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance of the
ointment." Here was a great act of love, with great symbolic
meaning. Jesus said it was for the day
of His burial. Many other spices and
perfumes were put upon the body of Christ when He was buried, but this event
hints that death would never leave its ugly smell on Christ, for He was the
very embodiment of love and fragrance.
In Him all excellence is
found.
His name a fragrance sheds
around,
Like that most costly oil of
nard,
Which Mary poured upon her
Lord.
The
Shulamite girl says her lover's name is like perfume poured out. That is exactly how the church, the Bride of
Christ, feels about Him and His name.
Bonar wrote,
I love the name of Jesus,
Immanuel, Christ the Lord,
Like fragrance on the
breezes,
His name abroad is poured.
The most
significant passage in all the Bible which relates to smell, love, and the
Gospel of Christ, is II. Cor. 2:14‑16.
"But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumph,
and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of Him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among
those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To one a fragrance from death to death, to
the other a fragrance from life to life."
In this passage Paul links the very issues of heaven and hell to the
nose. To spread the Gospel is to spread
the fragrance of the knowledge of Christ.
Has anyone ever told you, you smell like a Christian? How is a Christian suppose to smell? According to Paul, he is to smell sweet and
pleasant, like the perfume of God in Christ.
Billy
Graham has every one of his counselors put a mint in their mouth, just as he
gives the invitation, for it is hard to lead a soul to love Christ if you smell
like onions, or have some other foul odor.
Religious love is aided by pleasant smell. Pleasant odor was very important to Paul, for he was dealing with
people in Greek culture, and if you study how the Greeks love perfume you will
understand Paul's concern. Listen to
Antiphones as he describes the bath of an Athenian man of fashion.
In a large gilded tub he
steeps his feet
and legs in rich Egyptian
unguents.
His jaws and breast he rubs
with thick palm oil,
and both his arms with
extract sweet of mint,
his eyebrows and his hair
with margoram,
his knees and neck with
essence of ground thyme.
Descriptions of a Greek banquet are unbelievable in
the costly perfume used. Xenophones
describes an unique method by which all were showered with it.
He slipped four doves, whose
wings were saturate
With scents, all different
in kind‑these doves,
Wheeling in circles round,
let fall upon us
A shower of sweet perfumery,
drenching, bathing
Both clothes and furniture
and lordlings all.
The
Romans were also fanatics for perfume, but time does not permit us to explore.
In a world like that, Christians had to have a pleasant appeal to the nose of
people in order to win their attention.
The pleasant appeal was, of course, the name of Jesus. His was, and is, the only name on earth that
rid men of the foul odor of sin. All
though the Bible the word stink, and the word stank, are used to describe sin
and its consequences. Hate is linked to a stench in the nostrils. Every man either stinks before God, because
he is a sinner, and has no deodorant that can cleanse him, or he is like
perfume before God, because by his faith in Christ he has covered himself with
the sweet‑smelling sacrifice of the cross. A rotten breath can hurt romance, and a rotten soul hurts your
relationship with God. Jesus Christ is
God's only remedy for the foul breath of the sinful soul. If you put your trust in Him you can come
out of this foul world smelling like a rose.
10. ROMANTIC AND RELIGIOUS FRAGRANCE Based on Song of Songs 1:3
In the
tale of the Beauty and the Beast the horrible looking creature with 7 horns in
his forehead begs the beautiful young maiden he has carried away to kiss
him. She, of course, refuses to kiss
such ugliness, and the beast goes away.
She saw it no more until one day she found it lying dead under a bush in
the garden. She wept and cast herself
down on the beast and kissed it.
Suddenly it returned to life and was transformed into the handsomest
prince her eyes had ever beheld. He
then explained that he had been bewitched, and could never be delivered unless
a maid fell in love with him and kissed him.
That kiss she gave him removed the curse, redeemed him from death, and
restored him to his original state.
What a
fantastic story of the power of a kiss.
It is only a fairytale, but the truth it relates is the very truth of
the Christian Gospel. The beast
represents man under the curse. He
became ugly as he fell from his state of perfection. He was restored and transformed by the power of God's kiss, which
was the cross. Jesus reconciled God and
man by the power of His kiss of peace at Calvary. In this Song of Songs we see the Shulamite girl longing for the
kisses of her Shepherd lover, and God answered that longing in the souls of men
to be united with the lover of their souls by sending His Son in the flesh.
God
reached down and embraced His people in Christ. "He touched me and now I am no longer the same" is the
testimony of those who have responded to His love. But there is more to a kiss than touch, and that is our theme for
this message. All of the senses are involved in romance and kissing as we see
in this song. Many lovers may never
think of it, but the ears are important in kissing, for no kiss is complete
without sound. Most married people have
been in situation where they have tried to be quiet as they kiss, and they have
discovered that it is hard to kiss right without noise.
A kiss
without sound is like an egg without salt.
Most kisses in a marriage ceremony are not up to par because the
atmosphere is such that the nervous couple feels conspicuous, and they want to
keep the whole thing as quiet as possible.
They aim for a silent kiss, and they quickly learn that a silent kiss is
a crippled kiss. Shakespeare refers to
a groom who took full advantage of his wedding kiss, but he was an
exception. In the Taming of the Shrew
he writes,
This done, he took the bride
about the neck,
And kissed her lips with
such a clamorous smack
That at the parting, all the
church did echo.
Sound is a part of a good kiss, and this is true in
the spiritual realm as well. Faith
comes by hearing. It is by means of the
ear that we receive the good news, and the sound of that kiss of reconciliation
whereby we are united to Christ. This
kiss is the means by which we become a part of His bride.
The
sense of taste is also involved. The
Shulamite girl says, "Your love is better than wine." We will look at love and wine in greater
detail in another message, but we just want to point out here that love and
kissing like all enjoyable things should taste good. Psa. 34:8 says, "O taste and see that the Lord is
good." Psa. 119:103 says,
"How sweet are thy words unto my taste." Romantic and religious love is to be sweet to the taste, and be
sweeter than wine.
The poet writes,
O lady, there be many things
That seem right fair, below, above;
But sure not one among them
all
Is half so sweet as love.
The fact
is, if we had more loveaholics in the world there would be fewer alcoholics,
for true love is always better than wine.
The intoxication of love is delightful rather than disgusting. Dante wrote about the first time that
Beatrice spoke to him. "Because it
was the first time any words from her reached mine ears, I came into such
sweetness that I parted thence as one intoxicated."
The
sense we want to focus on in greater detail is one that we seldom think of, but
it is a primary factor in both romantic and religious love, and that is the
sense of smell. Your nose has much to
do with love. Even taste is largely a
matter of smell. Some of you may recall
that when you first began to kiss the one who is now your mate that there was a
distinct smell involved. A kiss, like
food, is not as good when you have a cold, and it is because smell is cut off
or diminished. Even wine is enjoyed,
not just for the taste, but for its smell.
In Hos. 14:7 God promises this blessing to His restored people. "...they shall flourish as a garden;
they shall blossom as the vine, their fragrance shall be like the wine of
Lebonon."
References to the fragrance of love run all through the Song of Songs.
Here is verse 3 in the Amplified Version. "The odor of your ointment is fragrant;
your name is like perfume poured out; therefore do the maidens love
you." Then in verse 12 to 14 we
read, "While the king sits at his table, she said my spikenard (my absent
lover) sends forth his fragrance over me.
My beloved is to me like a scent bag of myrrh that lies in my
bosom. My beloved is to me a cluster of
henna flowers in the vineyards of Engedi.
(Famous for its fragrant shrubs)."
The Bible is literally filled with references to perfumes, aromatic
gums, oils, and woods. Two of the three
gifts the wise men brought to Jesus as the new born king were frankincense and
myrrh, which were two of the oldest and most expensive perfumes in
history.
We need
to remember that the biblical world was a hot world. The climate was one in which perspiration would be a daily
problem. The result was that they were
even more concerned about perfume and deodorant than we are today. The Shulamite girl said her Shepherd lover
smelled so fragrant that he was a real hit with all the girls. If you attract the attention of the nose and
nose is given pleasure by what it smells, you have begun the first step in
kindling the flame of romantic love.
Studies show that a man notices a woman's perfume even is he doesn't
notice her dress or hair.
Fisherman are using a type of bait that attracts the fish by odor. Women have been doing this for thousands of
years with men, and men likewise with women, for in the ancient world perfume
was used as much by men as by women.
Never underestimate the role of the nose in love. In many parts of the world lovers actually
kiss with their nose. This is not just
among the Eskimos, but it is a custom in other parts of the world as well. In these cultures they do not say give me a
kiss, but they say, smell me. Their
very word for kiss means smell, and they get great pleasure in breathing in the
odor of those they love. Visitors
to Madagascar laugh at this custom, but
there is a very refine idea behind it.
They believe that every soul has its own unique perfume, and when they
kiss they breathe in the odor of their loved one, and they are mingling their
souls. This is to them a very intimate
experience by which they achieve a oneness that is more spiritual than that
which comes by the mere physical touch of the lips.
In the
Philippine Islands the sense of smell is so refined that by sniffing a pocket
handkerchief they can tell if it belongs to their lover. When they are separated they send bits of
their linen to each other so they can keep each other in mind by inhaling each
others scent. This is far more
meaningful to them then an x on a piece of paper, for the odor of a lover is a
real part of the lover. What appears
foolish to us is really not so foolish after all, but a rather refined romantic
use of the nose.
The
Bible gives evidence to support the idea that each person has a unique
odor. In Gen. 27:27 after Jacob put on
the clothes of his brother Esau, he went to deceive his father Isaac. Isaac was somewhat skeptical, but finally he
called him closer and sniffed him and said, "The smell of my son is the
good smell of the earth and fields that Jehovah has blessed." By tricking his nose Jacob got the blessing.
Smell plays a greater role in life and love than we realize. There is even a
science of smell called Osmics. This is a vast and fascinating subject, and so I have a more complete study
of the Fragrance of Love in another message.
Hopefully this brief introduction will make you want to sniff out the
deeper message and get a more powerful whiff of the perfume of love.
11. ROMANTIC AND RELIGIOUS LOVE
Based on Song of Songs 1:1f
Love
makes the world go round, says the one time popular song, and there are very
few who will deny it. History reveals
that one of life's greatest tragedies is to die unloved. During the Civil War, Charles Sumner was
assaulted in the Senate chamber, and was seriously ill for months. He regretted he had to leave his battle
against slavery unfinished, but this was not his deepest pain. He wrote, "But in the midnight watches,
my keenest heart‑gnawing regret was that, if I were called away, I had
never enjoyed the choicest experience of life, that no lips responsive to my
own had said, I love you."
He expressed
the minds of millions who would agree.
It would be terrible to live and die and never hear anyone say to you, I
love you. Love may not make the world
go round, but it makes men happier as they go around with it. Love has enabled men to die with heroic
valor. During the great battle of
Gettysburg, Pickett was ordered to charge the Union artillery. As he went to the head of his lines, Wilcox,
another commander, rode up to his side, and taking a flask from his pocket
said, "Pickett, take a drink with me.
In an hour you will be in hell or glory." He refused the drink saying, "I promise the little girl who
is waiting for me down in Virginia that I would keep fresh upon my lips until
we meet again, the breath of the violets she gave me when we parted." Faithful to his love, he rode off to die
without whiskey on his breath. No one
can calculate the power of human love in overcoming evil.
Love is
the major theme of the Bible. The two
great commandments that sum up the whole Old Testament are love
commandments. Love of God and love of
man are the highest values of life. In
the New Testament love is not only the highest virtue and the first fruit of
the Spirit, it is the very foundation of the Gospel. God so loved, is the beginning of the Gospel, and the end result
is, we love Him because He first loved us.
It is of
interest to note that love is the greatest theme of man's songs whether they be
sacred or secular. The world revolves
around romantic love, and the church around religious love. The one appeals to the flesh, and the other
to the spirit. It is a serious mistake,
however, to conclude that the two are opposed.
They are not necessarily in conflict, for spiritual people also enjoy
the experience of romantic love. In
fact, it is only as Christians that we can experience the best of both
worlds. The Christian can love one the
physical level and the spiritual level.
In Scripture the two become one, and are linked as closely as the body
and spirit. Each affects the other,
and, therefore, romantic love is everywhere in Scripture used as a symbol of
religious love. In other words, God has
taken the most common and universal experience of mankind and used it to
illustrate the ideal relationship He desires to have with man.
The Song
of Songs is a great love song that deals with love on the level of the
physical. All the delights of an ideal romance and marriage are dwelt with in
beautiful poetic language. The Bible would
be sadly lacking if it had nothing to say about one of life's most important
realms‑the realm of romantic love.
Few, however, have been content to leave it as a romantic song. It is true that God is not mentioned in the
song, and there are no religious words.
Yet, Jews and Christians alike have always seen the secular language of
the Song as symbolic of the sacred.
Just as the physical Temple was symbolic of the heavenly Temple, so
earthly human love is symbolic of the eternal love union of God and man. It is no mere accident that eternity begins
with a marriage banquet of Christ and His bride. Heaven is seen as an eternal honeymoon.
This is
the Song of Songs, that is, the supreme Song, like the King of Kings and the
Lord of Lords. The ultimate in songs
does not deal with romantic love only, but with the love of God and man. Religious love does not eliminate romantic
love, however, but exalts it. According
to I Kings 4:32 Solomon wrote 1,005 songs.
No doubt many of them dwelt with the theme of love, but this one is the
Song of Songs and became a part of Scripture because it deals with love on all
levels. It is the worlds greatest love
song.
Some
Christians have been embarrassed by the romantic and physical love of the Song
of Solomon. They have attempted to
explain it away as if romantic love was the devil's invention. The New Testament says in Heb. 13:4 that
marriage is honorable in all and the bed undefiled. If the Song of Solomon is seen as a pure and honorable love
relationship, there is no reason whatever to be embarrassed by its frankness.
It is true that the language of the Song is usually reserved for the privacy of
the lovers and is not uttered in public, but the fact that the Bible makes it
public shows that true and honorable love if God ordained. Man's big problem is
he cannot adequately distinguish between love and lust and the result is
confusion. Love words can make us think lustful, for they both use the same
language and this can be shocking to our minds.
If there
is great confusion over love and sex, then it would be tragic if the Bible did
not give us a description of what true love is all about. It does, however, and we have it right here
in this Song of Songs. Like most poetry
dealing with love it is not always easy to
understand. In fact, sometimes
it is very difficult, just like real love in real life.
Poetry tend to lend itself to a variety of
interpretations, and there has been a great deal of variety in interpreting
this book. Most everyone agrees it is
hard to expound on this
Song, but Bernard of Clairvaux, in the middle ages,
preached 86 sermons on it, and this two monks who could never marry.
From the
more liberal perspective, the Interpreter's Bible says, "Of all the books
in the Old Testament none is so
difficult to interpret as the Song of Songs." From the conservative side we read from Dr. James M. Gray, for
many years president of Moody Bible Institute, "Of all the books of the
Old Testament, I feel myself least competent to speak of the Song of
Songs. I am not ignorant of what others
have thought and written about the book, but personally I have not grasped it's
contents...." Only a person who has done little study, or who has a great
deal of pride, would claim to fully grasp this great love song. My own approach will be eclectic. It will attempt to see the truth and the
values of the different interpretations held by men of God, both ancient and
modern.
The most
commonly held modern interpretation is that the Shulamite is a beautiful
shepherdess girl in love with a young shepherd. They are engaged to be married, but one day King Solomon
traveling by spotted this lovely creature.
When he inquired and found she was not yet married, he ordered his
noblemen to bring her to the royal pavilion.
Solomon woes her and treats her like a queen, but all the glory and
splendor of Solomon the mighty king could not take the place of her love for
her shepherd. She longs to return to
her true love, and forsake the riches of Solomon's palace. This view is spelled out in detail in the
Amplified Bible.
The Song
is largely her song of love, and her desire to be true to her shepherd lover,
and him only, inspite of all the appeals to forsake true love. She urges the ladies of Solomon's court to
stop trying to divert her love from the shepherd to the king. She is persistent in resisting the charms of
Solomon, and dreams only of her lover.
When the ladies of the court ask why she is so loyal to her shepherd,
she describes him in eloquent poetry.
Finally, true love triumphs, and she is released, and goes to meet her
shepherd lover. In 8:7 she sums up her
experience with these words: "Many
waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of
his house, it would be utterly scorned."
True
love is permanent and cannot be bought.
She would rather be the wife of a simply shepherd she loved, than number
701 among the wives of King Solomon.
Here was a girl who could say no, even to the king, because she had
surrendered herself to her one and only love.
I love thee‑I love
thee!
Tis all that I can say;
It is my vision in the night
My dreaming in the day.
It is not
difficult to see how this interpretation has a spiritual application. Love, loyalty, and faithfulness to the
Savior is what the Christian experience is all about.
As part of the bride of Christ, every Christian goes
through what this young girl of the Song goes through. Every Christian is tempted by the glory of
the world to be unfaithful to Christ.
Israel was lured away time and time again by other lovers than her
husband Jehovah. She became an
adulterous wife and the whole book of Hosea is about how God in His great love
sought her out to forgive and restore her.
The Song of Solomon, however, is a song where the ideal love is
maintained. The bride does not go
astray, but remains faithful, and that is why it is the Song of Songs.
Paul
LeBotz wrote, "The Song of Solomon is the world's greatest love song,
because it is an allegory of the world's greatest love story, that of Christ
and His Bride." The romantic
experience of falling, and growing in love is the most intense and interesting
experience of life. It is the nearest
thing to a religious experience, and that is why romance and religion are
linked all through Scripture. Paul used
the language of love to describe the relationship of Christ and the
church. He says that every Christian is
engaged to be married, and it is his hope that they will be virgins when the
time comes, and not be unfaithful to the Bridegroom. Listen to II Cor. 11:2‑3 in the New English Bible. "I am jealous for you with a divine
jealousy; for I betrothed you to Christ, thinking to present you as a chaste
virgin to her true and only husband.
But as the serpent in his cunning seduced Eve, I am afraid that your
thoughts may be corrupted and you may lose your simple‑hearted devotion
to Christ." Paul fears they will follow false Christ's and be untrue to
their true Lover‑the Good Shepherd.
Sex and
satisfaction go hand in hand. The Bible
makes it clear that your sex life can
either help or hinder you in your spiritual life. If you are loyal in your love to your mate, the chances are very
good you will be loyal to Christ in the spiritual realm. If you allow Satan to lure you into an
immoral relationship, the chances are very good he will succeed in luring you
into spiritual infidelity. Romance and
religion are as close as body and spirit, and what happens in one realm affects
the other. In the final analysis of
life, according to the closing chapters of Revelation, every person will fit
into one of two categories. They will
either be a part of the Bride of Christ, or part of the Great Whore, who is
judged and condemned. God uses sex
symbolism to describe the ultimate destiny of men. It will be an eternal marriage or everlasting divorce.
If
Christians ever needed to stress the importance of, and the beauty of, a pure
sex life, it is today. We live in a
world where the greatest competitor with Christ is sex. The world does not have idols of wood and
stone, but living idols which seek to lure us from our Lord. It is a constant
repetition of the story of the Song of Songs.
Romance, love, and sex need to be diligently studied from a Christian
and Biblical point of view, if we expect Christians to be faithful to Christ,
as the Shulamite was to her shepherd lover.
Even a
pure and noble sex relationship can be embarrassing, however, because we are
stuck with a fallen nature which is far short of the ideal. Adam and Eve could look upon nakedness,
before the fall, and feel no shame.
This is no longer the case, and the result is,
not all of the Song of Solomon can be expounded in
public. There are many things that are
pure and beautiful between mates that are inexpressible in public. Some of these intimate things are found in
this great love song, and should be read in the privacy of your home.
Someone
may object, and insist that all Scripture is given by God, and is profitable,
and therefore, all Scripture should be publicly expounded. This objection fails to take in
consideration the fact that the Bible was written for adults. There is no part of the Bible, to my
knowledge, that was written for children.
The Bible is an adult book, and some parts of it are such that only an
adult can handle it without being affected in a negative way. Remember, the
devil used the Scripture to tempt Christ, and he continues to do so, and an
immature person could even be led into immorality through the reading of some
Scriptures. I do not say this as a theory, for I have read the history of how
the Bible has been used for the promotion of immorality.
Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher, preached many sermons on the Song
of Solomon, but he said, "The song is, in truth, a book for full‑grown
Christians." It was one of his
favorites, but he recognized it would be a blank to many Christians who had not
gone far nor deep in their love for Christ.
He said, "It's music belongs to the higher spiritual life, and has
no charm in it for unspirited ears.....The historical books I may compare to
the outer courts of the temple: The
Gospels, the Epistles, and the Psalms, bring us into the holy place or the
Court of the priests; but the Song of
Solomon in the most holy place: The holy of holies, before which the veil still
hangs to many and untaught believer."
Many Christians
fail to grasp the beauty of this Song because of personal problems in their own
lives. These make impossible for them
to link the sexual and spiritual. The
great expounders of the book were men who loved their wives and their Lord, and
could see the beauty of both, and how one illustrated the other. G. Cambell Morgan wrote,
"It is, first, a revelation of the true nature
of human love. It is, secondly, an unveiling of the highest religious
experience." Then he said,
"The cool, calculating, mechanical man who dislikes this book has never
been in love, and probably never will be." According to Morgan, the reading of this part of Scripture can be
a good test of your capacity to love.
If it is disgusting to you, you are wired wrong, and could use some
counseling. If it is delightful to you,
you have the capacity to attain to God's ideal for both romantic and religious
love.
The
value of studying this book is that it can lead us into the depths of the two
most important love relationships of life:
Love of a man and woman, and love of man and God. We will better grasp the intensity of
Christ's love for us as we see how it relates to the passionate love of human
lovers. Jesus loves me this I know, for
the Bible tells me so. And here is the
part of the Bible that tells it in powerful romantic poetry. All love songs are an attempt to express the
inexpressible. There are no end to
them, for none ever succeed in saying it all.
The Song of Songs says it better than any other, however, and gives
expression to numerous values we will be considering. We need to keep in mind that we are dealing with the love of
Christ, the most intense love that can be known. The poet put it‑
One there is above all
others,
Oh, how He loves!
His is love beyond the
brother's,
Oh, how He loves!
Earthly friends may fail or
leave us,
One day soothe, the next day
grieve us;
But this Friend will ne'er
deceive us,
Oh, how He loves!
If we
expect to inner into the experience of this Song of Songs, then our prayer
should be that which Dr. Chalmers prayed when he began his study of this book:
"My God, spiritualize my affections, give me
intense love to Christ."
12. ROMANTIC AND RELIGIOUS KISSES
Based on Song of Songs 1:2
The story is told, and it could very well be true,
of a Danish couple who decided to break off their engagement. "It is best
I suppose that we give back each others letters," he said. She agreed, and
replied, "We should at the same time return each others kisses." By
the time they had finished their exchange, they agreed to renew their
engagement. There is something about a kiss that does more than merely bring
about a union of the lips. It has the power to also bring about the union of
lives. Kissing is a matter of the spirit as well as of the body, and that is
why kissing is never to be taken lightly. Treating the kiss as a minor matter
has led many into relationships where they very carelessly tamper with the deep
inner being of others.
The Italians say, "A kiss is like a grain of
dust which anyone who would be rid of it can wash away." The Germans
looking deeper respond, "A kiss may indeed be washed away, but the fire in
the heart cannot be quenched." Kissing is so directly linked with love
that to engage in it without love is certain to open the door to lust. A kiss
awakened Sleeping Beauty, and it can awaken sleeping lust in anyone. There are
many different kinds of kisses, and we will be looking at the most significant
of them. The true romantic kiss is to be reserved for that one you desire to
one with you on all levels.
What is a kiss? Why it is this‑
It is the cement, it is the glue
Of love that makes me one with you.
There are all kinds of definitions of a kiss.
Scientifically it is the ovicular juxtaposition of the oral protrusion of the
outer cavity. From the negative view, it is the mutual interchange of salivary
bacteria. More romantic is the view that a kiss is a secret told to the mouth
instead of the ear. More passionate is the definition of Paul Verlaine who defines the kiss, "As the
fiery accompaniment on the key board of the teeth of the lovely songs which
love sings in a burning heart." However you look at it, one thing is sure,
kissing is a pleasant reminder that two heads are better than one.
The Song of Songs begins with the problem of a deep
desire for kissing, but only one head. The Shulamite girl longs for the kisses
of her lover, but she is separated from him. The Song does not begin calmly and
build to a climax, but it begins with a burst of passionate frustrated love.
"O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth!" When people
have been separated for a long time, and then reunited, the first thing they do
is kiss. Lovers often take the kiss for granted until they are separated, and
then they realize how much they long to embrace and kiss the object of their
love. The Shulamite can think of nothing better than the kisses of her lover.
She dearly misses her lovers kisses.
With kisses of his mouth, said she,
Let him, now reconciled, kiss me.
Thy love, said she, when it is mine,
Is better than the choicest wine.
Anyone who has ever been separated from a loved one
can enter into the intense craving of this young girl, but the question is,
what is the spiritual significance of her longing? There is a direct parallel
to this romantic longing in the realm of the spirit. Many times the believer's
soul feels separated from God, and longs for the good old days of close and
loving communion. We sing, everyday with Jesus is sweeter than the day before,
but in reality we know this is not so. Many days we can look back and long to
return to a former day when our loves seemed sweeter and stronger, and when we
sense the presence of Christ more intimately in our lives.
From a spiritual perspective this Song begins with
an intense need for the lover of our souls to draw near, and give satisfaction
to the longings of our heart. It is a lovers cry which reveals a desperate need
to be loved. It is appropriate that this opening cry for love should come from
the girl. Studies indicated that women feel the need to be loved more than men.
Spiritually it is fitting as well, for the church, the Bride of Christ, feels
the need for love more than does Christ. He is self‑sufficient, and does
not feel the loneliness or the hunger for love that we do as believers.
Believer's, like this lonely shepherd girl, cannot
be happy and satisfied until they experience the kiss of the Shepherd. This was
true for the Old Testament saints who looked for the coming of the Messiah.
They looked at this lovers cry and said, that is us, Israel crying out to God
to come down. We have been kissed by the mouth of Moses and the prophets, but
we want the Messiah Himself, for this would be the very kiss of God.
A lady took her nephew to her church one Sunday. He
had not been in church before, and was very observant. When the service was
over, he was busting with excitement. He said, "Auntie‑did you see
God's kiss?" "Whatever do you mean by that?" she asked. "I
saw it‑God's kiss‑on the window of the church. I make my kisses
crooked when I write my letters, but God's kiss is straight up." Then she
realized he was referring to the cross. It was no childish mistake. It was a
profound theological insight. The cross was indeed the kiss of God. A kiss is a
means of reconciliation, and that is what the cross was in God's plan of
redemption. Is it just a coincidence, or is it providential that our symbol for
a kiss is a cross? God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, is
equivalent to saying, He so loved us that while we were yet sinners, He kissed
us. He came to us with a kiss of peace and reconciliation. The cross is the greatest
love symbol in the world, and to the Old Testament saints it was the
fulfillment of their desire for the kiss of God.
For New Testament believers, the longing is for the
Great Shepherd and Lover of our souls to come again. We can look back to the
incarnation and the great love of Christ, but, like the Shulamite girl, it is
the very love of the past that makes her long for more. One who has never known
the joys of love, and the kisses of a lover, cannot crave for them, as can
those who have already enjoyed them. The New Testament believer, therefore, has
a deeper desire for union with Christ than did the Old Testament saints.
Religious love, like romantic love, varies in it's
intensity from day to day, depending upon health, energy, and many
circumstances. But when a Christian is feeling his best, he should long to be possessed by the love
of Christ, and kissed into ecstasy by His indwelling presence. He should feel
something of what the poet expresses:
Jesus, Thy boundless love to me
No thought can reach, no tongue declare;
Oh, knit my thankful heart to Thee,
And reign without a rival there!
Thine wholly, Thine alone I am,
Lord, with Thy love my heart inflame.
Oh, grant that nothing in my soul
May dwell, but Thy pure love alone!
Oh, may Thy love possess me whole,
My joy, my treasure, and my crown!
The kiss has been called love's great artillery, and
by the kiss of the cross our Shepherd lover defeated the divorce plan that
Satan had set in motion, and He reconciled God and man. Sin still separates us,
however, and we can still have lover's quarrels, and division, which leaves us
feeling cut off from the love of Christ. In the spirit realm, as in the
romantic, we need to learn to kiss and make up. In fact, Psa. 2 ends with this
verse, "Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye parish from the way, when
His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in
Him."
The kiss had a very religious significance all
through Bible times. To kiss can mean to acknowledge one as Lord. The picture
of kissing the Pope's foot, and kissing idols, goes way back in history, when
the kiss had a religious meaning. Listen to what God said to Elijah in I Kings
19:18, "Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have
not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him." To have
kissed Baal was to have submitted to him as Lord. And so, to have kissed Christ
is to have submitted to Him as Lord. Kissing the Son, therefore, is the only
way to escape the wrath of God, and enjoy the romance of eternity. Kissing is a
very serious religious matter.
Kissing and idolatry went hand in hand all through
the Old Testament. Worshippers of the sun and moon would express their loyalty
to these false deities by kissing their hands and pointing to the sun or moon.
Job refers to this practice, and he denies he was ever guilty of it in Job
31:26‑28. "If I have looked at the sun when it shone, or the moon
moving in splendor, and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my mouth has
kissed my hand; this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges,
for I should have been false to God above." If men do not kiss the true
Lover of their souls, they will be kissing some deceiver. Idolatry is simply kissing
a false lover. It is a giving of your souls affection to something, or someone,
who cannot love and save your soul. The point is, religious kisses,
like romantic ones, must be kept exclusive.
Men have always gone astray when they kissed any
other than the one and only Lover of their soul. It fits the whole pattern of
Old Testament history that Judas should betray Jesus with a kiss. God's people
have always betrayed Him with a kiss. They offered their love to Him, but then
went after other gods and kissed them as well. That is what Judas was doing. He
kissed Jesus, but then longed to kiss the thirty pieces of silver that he got
for betraying Him even more. True love keeps its kisses exclusively for the
lover. Spurgeon wrote, "The kiss is a mark of worship; to kiss Christ is
at the same time to recognize Him as God, and to pay Him divine worship."
Those who never kiss the Son in this religious sense will never experience the
love of God, and the salvation that comes because of it.
Because kissing had such a religious significance in
ancient history, and in Biblical culture, it became a part of the every day
life of the early Christians. Peter closes his first Epistle by writing,
"Greet one another of the kiss of love." Paul in Rom. 16:16
writes, "Greet one another with a
holy kiss." He says the same thing in I Cor. 16:20, and in II Cor. 13:12.
Then in I Thess. 5:26 he writes, "Greet all the brethren with a holy
kiss." There was obviously a lot of kissing going on in the early
churches, which is foreign to us to day. We still kiss in the church, but only
after weddings, and even there you had better be careful. One guy said to
another, "How did you get that black eye?" He said, "I kissed a
bride after the wedding." "Why everyone does that," the other
guy said, mystified. "Yeah," responded the injured man, "But
this was two years after the wedding." Kissing the bride has to be timed
right, or else. The New Testament seems to indicate, however, that the Bride of Christ was to be almost
continually engaged in kissing one another as a form of greeting.
This practice has had quite a history. In the 13th
century it was practiced in France where women kissed women, and the men kissed
men. It developed in many areas that men would kiss women on the hand as a
greeting. In England, in the 13th century, a special instrument was used to
help the faithful obey Paul's command. It was a metal disc with a holy picture
on it, and it was passed around the church for all to kiss. This did not prove
to be very helpful as a kiss of peace, since it started a lot of quarrels as to
who deserved the honor of kissing it first. It also led to youthful shenanigans
in church, for the boys tried to sit next to pretty girls and kiss it after
them. And old poem says,
I told the maid that she was fair,
I've kissed the Pax just after her.
The reformation abolished all this type of thing.
The Greek church still practices the kiss of peace on Easter Sunday. Kissing as
an act of respect and reverence was common in days past, but this is no longer
the case. Men kissed each other all the time in Biblical days, and it was a
normal part of life. In the middle ages, knights kissed before a duel,
just as boxers today shake hands before a fight. The
hand shake has become to us what the kiss was to the early Christians. A hand
shake today is equivalent to a holy kiss.