King Solomon teaches many valuable lessons about love and romance in the marriage relationship. We learn from him that love is pure, love protects and love is passionate. In the marriage relationship, God portrays the intimacy that He wants to have with us. The divine romance is Christ laying down His life for His bride, the church.
Bring Your Sexy Back
Song of Solomon 8:6-7
S3-1749
Roger
SLIDE 2: Turn in your Bibles to Song of Solomon 8.
God called King Solomon the wisest man in history. His poem “Song of Solomon” is one of the most passionate and intense expressions of love and devotion (between and husband and wife) in literature.
Forget eHarmony or any other on-line matchmaking service. If you need some tips on finding a wife, maybe these examples from the Old Testament will help.
JULIE
SLIDE 3: Don’t be so picky. Grab as many as you can get..
SLIDE 4: Solomon (1 Kings 11:1-3)
Roger
SLIDE 5: Even if no one is out there, just wander around a bit and you’ll definitely find someone. SLIDE6: Cain (Genesis 4:16-17)
JULIE
SLIDE 7: Find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails, and give her new clothes. Then she’s yours. –
SLIDE 8: Any old Hebrew Guy (Deuteronomy 21:11-13)
Roger
SLIDE:9. Cut 200 foreskins off of your future father-in-law’s enemies and get his daughter for a wife –
SLIDE 10: David (I Samuel 18:27)
JULIE
SLIDE 11: Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry her off to be your wife. –
SLIDE 12: Benjaminites –Those party animals.(Judges 21:19-25)
Roger
SLIDE 13: Or, you can do it like our daughter Bronwyn
Bron’s wedding dress: Ricky, this dress will go with any guy..
JULIE
Read and explain passage:
SLIDE 14: Song of Solomon 8:6: “Put me like a seal over your heart, lid
Like a seal on your arm. Protective cover
For love is as strong as death, fierce, unrelenting.
Jealousy (to possess) is as severe as Sheol; cruel
Its flashes are flashes of fire, lightning, arrows
The very flame of the LORD. Fire of Jehovah
SLIDE 15: 7 Many waters cannot quench love, put the fire out
Nor will rivers overflow it; floods wash it away
If a man were to give all the riches of his house for love,
It would be utterly despised. No cost is too high, love is priceless.
ROGER
Solomon tells us how to have hot, burning love. If you follow his advice, “til death do us part” is possible. This passage has three powerful lessons about true love.
He teaches that:
SLIDE 16: Love is pure.
Verse 8:6: “Place me like a seal over your heart . . .”
SLIDE 17: Love is protective.
Verse 8:6: “Place me . . . like seal on your arm.”
SLIDE 18: Love is passionate.
Verse 8:6-7: Its flashes are flashes of fire—the very flame of the LORD.
JULIE
SLIDE 19: LET’S LOOK AT HOW LOVE IS PURE.
“Set me as a seal upon your heart.”
How do you value someone you love? You seal and protect from contaminants and impurity. The Hebrew word chatham (khaw-tham’); to close up; especially to seal up:
SLIDE 20: It’s Tupperware love.
Tupperware keeps mold and bacteria out of food so that it won’t spoil.
For example, you protect your loved one’s virtue, you guard her honor by keeping her sexually pure until the wedding.
Women, Here is Solomon’s injunction regarding sexual purity for you. She chooses to save herself for her husband.
SLIDE 21: Song of Solomon 8:12: “But my own vineyard is mine to give; the thousand shekels are for you, O Solomon, and two hundred are for those who tend its fruit.”
Solomon tells us that our virginity is the most precious gift we can give our husband or wife—is worth 1,000 shekels!
You can only give your virginity once. It’s kind of like a Safety deposit box. You have a key and you fiancé has a key.
It takes two keys to unlock the treasure.
When you are dating or engaged, both of you have the “key to save your precious treasure”, your virtue, for marriage.
Protecting the virginity of your loved one is one of the greatest ways you can protect her trust foundation, your spiritual growth, and your sexual freedom in marriage.
If you have not stayed pure, you can receive God’s forgiveness today and start from this moment on to wait for God’s right person for you.
We waited four years to be together. We knew we wanted to be married the first month we met. Never have regretted having only one partner. Sex just gets better. There’s nothing like broken trust to spoil sex-no greater pain than infidelity.
ROGER
SWITCH TO ROGER’S COMPUTER
SLIDE 22: OVERHEAD: You have heard the phrase: “Those two have chemistry.”
Chemistry: couple comes together—oxcytosin moment
Mother’s milk—binds mom to child and child to mom
Monogamy
Parenting
SWITCH BACK TO TECH COMPUTER
SLIDE 23: Song of Solomon 8:8-9: We have a young sister, and her figure is not yet developed. What shall we do for our sister for the day she is spoken for? 9 If she is a wall, we will build towers of silver on her. If she is a door, we will enclose her with panels of cedar.
This is an illustration of what Solomon is teaching in this poem. The young innocent girl is protected by silver towers and enclosed with cedar—her dad and her brothers!
Guys, It is also a good injunction for fathers to protect their daughters.
Now we all tease about locking them away in a closet until they are thirty (a little harsh), but we must preserve and prepare them for life.
We teach them about sex and marriage. We know their friends, pray for them, listen to them and stay involved in their lives. Otherwise peers and media give them sex education.
SLIDE 24: For example, here is another example of purity.
A husband is keeps his wife pure by example as spiritual head of the home, and by keeping uncleanness out of the marriage.
SLIDE 25: Ephesians 5:25-27: Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26 to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27 and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.
Examine the language and attitudes you bring into you home.
Guys, Solomon also warns us in Proverbs 5 to seal off our hearts guard our hearts, from sexual impurity, from coarse language, from pornography and impure influences in the home.
JULIE
Love is pure. Love also protects.
SLIDE 26: Love protects. “Set me as a seal upon your arm.”
A seal over your arm-your wife guards her physical and emotional well-being.
SLIDE 27: It’s not like Angelina Jolie’s tattoo. She tattooed her previous husband’s name, Billy Bob Thornton, on her arm, and when they broke up, she filled in the B’s so it looked like a chain.
SLIDE 28: The Covering of Protection for the wife is perfectly illustrated in the love story in the book of Ruth.
Ruth was a beautiful young widow from Moab. When her husband Chillion died, she chose to follow her mother-in-law to Israel. Sons were supposed to provide for their wives and mothers-so Ruth and Naomi were destitute.
But Naomi was clever and Ruth had moxy. Naomi advised Ruth to glean for grain in the field of her rich relative, Boaz. When Boaz saw Ruth, he was bitten by the love bug. Boaz didn’t just give her day-old bagels, he gave her the whole bakery.
Naomi saw Boaz’s generosity and devised a plan. Ruth followed Naomi’s advice. She put on her prettiest dress, spritzed with Chanel #5 and then slipped down to the barn (granary) where Boaz was snoring away.
As Naomi had instructed her, Ruth lay down at Boaz’s feet and used his robe as a blankie. When the rich farmer awoke in the early morning, he smiled and said in Ruth 3:10-12:
SLIDE 29: Ruth 3:10-12: “The LORD bless you, my daughter,” he replied. “This kindness is greater than that which you showed earlier: You have not run after the younger men, whether rich or poor. 11 And now, my daughter, don’t be afraid. I will do for you all you ask. All my fellow townsmen know that you are a woman of noble character
This was an OT custom. When a blood relative died, man was responsible for caring for his relative’s wife—often by marrying them. Boaz was testing out her character.
Young Ruth had respectfully asked for Boaz to marry her-to cover her with his loving protection as her husband.
ROGER
This kind of “covering” is the protection Jesus gives to His bride as described in Ephesians 5:
SLIDE 30: Ephesians 5:28-29: In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 29 After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church—
JULIE
Roger was always concerned to take care of me physically. Worked as a janitor cleaning potties to have enough money to take me out. After a few months, the church made him associate pastor and the nursery ladies still kept coming to his office for toilet paper. But Roger took any job he could find to provide for me.
He protected me by financial planning, keeping us out of debt. By buying sufficient insurance, wills, saving for our children’s education. If a man says he loves God and does not provide for his family, he is worse than an infidel.
Roger even protects me by treating me like someone special. He is always walking on the outside of the sidewalk, opening the door for me, pulling out my chair, carrying heavy bags, etc. By those simple acts of kindness- he is showing methat I am valuable and that he cherishes me. Guys, if you want for a girl to fall for you, try treating her like a queen. She will love you for it.
ROGER:
Avril Lavigne Cinderella lyrics
SLIDE 31: I hate it when a guy doesn’t get the door
Even though I told him yesterday and the day before
I hate it when a guy doesn’t get the tab
And I have to pull my money out and that looks bad.
Where are the hopes, where are the dreams
My Cinderella story scene
When do you think they’ll finally see…
JULIE
Here’s the fun part.
SLIDE 32: Passion is a mighty flame.
SLIDE 33: Old Flames.
George McCaleb-first grade gave me a cracker-jack ring and kissed me on the playground. I tattled to the teacher and he had to stay after school.
I got into a kissing contest on the playground in second grade, and I had to stay after school.
ROGER
Janet Burnet was the first girl I ever kissed. I was 7.
My flame in 5th grade was Hara Hunt. Her uncle owned the Kansas City Chiefs NFL football team
JULIE
You only loved her for her money. Remember Molly Parker?
ROGER
She threw up in my car. I don’t know if she had flu or just was sick of me. I never dated her again.
Remember Marshall Millsap? You and he were pretty close.
JULIE
Well, I looked him up on the internet and he’s global vice president of Chase Bank.
ROGER
Ricky told me you really traded down! Remember two-timing me with Stuart Depew? I thought I was the only one. Now I know you were dating Stuart and Bill and that guy up in Wisconsin and we all thought we were the only ones.
You had a lot of old flames.
JULIE
I was a little ADD. You’ve heard the expression “He’s an old flame…well if he’s an ex-boyfriend, according to Solomon, he may be a flame—but certainly not an eternal flame.
SLIDE 34: BECAUSE REAL FLAMES LAST FOREVER.
Love burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame. This is spontaneous combustion here. Blazing fire has the connotation of lightning or arrows being shot.
Cupid’s arrows are not too far off the real description of this verse.
Passion in sex.
Let’s read the romantic words Solomon and his bride said to each other. Roger, you be Solomon, and I’ll be his Shunnamite bride.
ROGER
SLIDE 35: Song 4:1-7: How beautiful you are, my darling! (you’re so hot)
Oh, how beautiful! Your eyes behind your veil are doves. (feathery eyelashes)
Your hair is like a flock of goats (the dow jones stock market going up)
descending from Mount Gilead.
SLIDE 36: 2 Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn,
Coming up from the washing. (she brushes her teeth)
Each has its twin; not one of them is alone. (she has all her teeth)
SLIDE 37: 3 Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon; your mouth is lovely.
Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate (pomegranates have red seeds-did she have pimples in her temples.)
SLIDE 38: 4 Your neck is like the tower of David,
built with elegance; on it hang a thousand shields, (elaborate necklace)
all of them shields of warriors.
SLIDE 39: 7 All beautiful you are, my darling;
there is no flaw in you.
SLIDE 40: Remember, the good news is, love is blind!
JULIE
SLIDE 41: Song 5:10-16: My lover is radiant and ruddy, (Solomon could have been a red-head like his father.)
outstanding among ten thousand. (I can pick him out of a crowd.)
11 His head is purest gold; (I’ll go for silver)
his hair is wavy (I’m glad he has some)
and black as a raven.
SLIDE 42: 12 His eyes are like doves (gentle and sparkling)
by the water streams, washed in milk, mounted like jewels.
His cheeks are like beds of spice (nice aftershave) yielding perfume.
His lips are like lilies dripping with myrrh.
SLIDE 43: 14 His arms are rods of gold (he works out at LA fitness) set with chrysolite.
His body is like polished ivory (buns of steel) decorated with sapphires.
15 His legs are pillars of marble set on bases of pure gold. (He didn’t need a pedicure-Guys, do us girls a favor-Cut your toenails)
His appearance is like Lebanon, choice as its cedars.
SLIDE 44: 16 His mouth is sweetness itself; (gargle occasionally)
he is altogether lovely.
This is my lover, this my friend, (Don’t just chase me around the bedroom, be my friend)
SLIDE 45: Remember, love is blind!
Speaking of lovers and friends…Can you imagine that the love map for a guy is different than the love map for a girl?
SLIDE 46: LOVE MAP EXERCISE: Answer this question: “From my point of view, a perfect romantic encounter with my spouse would include:” (What would you enjoy receiving from your husband or wife?)
Then you write them down and exchange them with one another. Put them in a brown envelope, out of the reach of the children.
Let me tell you why this is so important. In our work it is amazing how many couples we counsel who never talk about sex.
If it is hard to communicate about spiritual matters, if it is hard to communicate about financial matter, it is real hard to communicate about sex.
SWITCH TO ROGER’S COMPUTER
SLIDE OVERHEAD 47: Julie draw on computer
One of the first couples we did and the lady’s list looked almost verbatim like this:
#1 Wednesday night, home on time for dinner. That is item 1 on her passion list.
#2 Thursday night, go for a walk.
#3 Friday night, take me out on a date.
Then from there on, starting on Saturday night they got sexually explicit
ROGER
I have never seen a man’s love map look like that!
Most men would say, “That’s wasting time!”
God wired us so that what it takes to turn on a man is so different from what it takes
SLIDE 48: to turn on a woman.
JULIE
Its flashes are flashes of fire, lightning, arrows
The very flame of the LORD
To be sexy is to be godly. After, He invented it!
ROGER
Here’s what real love looks like.
SLIDE 49: (Draw diagram of man, woman and God.)
It’s Jehovah’s fire that keeps romance alive!
SLIDE 50: The Divine Romance
God has pictured for us in the marriage relationship the intimacy that He wants to have with his people. So today we are going to take the Lord’s Supper and remember the Divine Romance-Christ laying down His life for His bride, the church.
LORD’S SUPPER