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Now in Song of Solomon chapter number 2, the Bible reads in verse number 1, I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the suns. And I talked about this last week, but clearly in verse number 1 we have a woman speaking, not a man. Because we can see that the book of Song of Solomon is a dialogue, most of it that is, a dialogue between a husband and his wife. There are other people that pipe up at times throughout the book and speak, but the vast majority of the book is a husband speaking with his wife, and it's usually pretty easy to tell who's speaking, whether it be the husband or whether it be the wife. Now here we can see that there's a back and forth going on because in the first verse it says, I am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys. Now at first guess, does that sound like something that a woman would say or that a man would say? I mean what kind of a man goes around calling himself the rose of Sharon or the lily of the valleys? The way I like to explain this is you think of truck drivers. They often have their handle that they use on their CV radio. It's usually something like junkyard dog or something like that or whatever. But it's probably not rose of Sharon, this is lily of the valley, do you copy? Because that's not a very manly term. So obviously if you look at it right away at first blush you're going to say that's her talking. But it's pretty obvious because she's talking in verse one and then he is talking in verse two. He says, as the lily among thorns. Obviously in reference to what she just said in verse one. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. So he here is talking about his wife as being a lily among thorns. And then she says in verse three, as the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sun. So we can see it goes back and forth. She's speaking in verse one, he's speaking in verse two, she's speaking in verse three, and she continues to speak for several more scriptures. So the bottom line is you have to just use common sense when you're reading this book on who's talking. Now the song in the hymnal, he's the lily of the valley about Jesus and I've heard preachers all the time say Jesus is the lily of the valley, Jesus is the rose of Sharon. That is found nowhere in the Bible, nowhere. I mean look it up, look up every time the word lily occurs, look up every time the word rose occurs, that song is coming from this verse which has nothing to do with Jesus, number one. And number two, it's not even a man that's saying it, it's a woman that's saying it. And really it's just crystal clear from this. That goes to show that you can't base what you believe and what you think just based on songs from the hymnal because some of the songs in the hymnal are inaccurate. Now Song of Solomon is a book that's not very often read and not very often preached. And so therefore not a lot of people understand the book of Song of Solomon. And there's a lot of strange teachings about the book of Song of Solomon. Now I don't know about you, but in my Bible that I'm preaching out of here, it doesn't have any notes or study helps or anything like that, but it has these little subject lines. Maybe every ten verses it'll tell you what it's about. Does everybody know what I'm talking about? Does your Bible do the same thing? You know sometimes at the top of the page in the Bible it'll kind of tell you what's going on on that page. And you know I always just ignore that stuff because that's not God's word. That's usually just man's opinion, they just put that in there whether it's at the top or like in the Bible I'm preaching out of tonight it's actually, you know, every ten verses or so there's a little line to tell you what it's about. And usually I just ignore it. But as I was reading Song of Solomon out of this Bible, these subject lines are so ridiculous that I literally had to just take a pen and just cross them out, which I never do that because they're just so ridiculous and it's almost like the person who put these in is reading a different book. And they put a subject line and then you read the next verses and it has nothing to do with what they wrote. These are their subject lines. They said, you know, the Shulamites love for the shepherd, the shepherd's banner of love, the shepherd pursues the Shulamites, the Shulamites faithfulness to the shepherd, the search for the shepherd, the shepherd found the coming of the king. And they basically have the shepherd and the king as two different people and this whole love song has nothing to do with the king, nothing to do with King Solomon according to whoever put in these subject references. But if you actually read the book, like if you actually read chapter one that we preached through last week, it's clear that she's expressing her love for King Solomon. She's talking about being at the king's table, she's talking about the king bringing her into his chamber in the first couple of verses of the book. This is what I'm saying, you need to stay away from commentaries and stay away from study Bibles that explain everything because they will more often than not lead you astray. And this book especially, they have a very strange belief on what this book is about. If you actually read the book and study it, it is a man expressing his love for a woman and a woman expressing her love for that man. And we also see the word over and over again, spouse, in here. So this is a husband and wife, these people are married. And obviously a lot of it's very dramatic and obviously a lot of it's very exaggerated and there's a lot going on in the book that I'm going to preach through as we get to each verse, but I just want you to understand that this is not a love triangle between the shepherd and Solomon and the woman. That is a very strange doctrine indeed. I've studied this book for years, I've memorized several chapters of it and I'm not seeing it. I'm not saying it's just a complete fabrication, that's my opinion. And so as we read this, we see that first of all the song, the lily of the valley is completely unscriptural. In verse 3 it says as the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sun. That's a more fitting metaphor for a man. A man would probably be compared to a tree a lot sooner than he's compared unto a lily. And it says, I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love. Now, as we read Song of Solomon, first of all, the primary application of Song of Solomon is that it's a book about love. And it's a book about the love between a husband and wife, between a married couple. Now there are a lot of other secondary symbolic applications obviously because of the fact that the Bible talks about the fact that marriage is symbolic of Christ's love for us. The Bible says husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And so there is a lot of symbolism here of the Lord Jesus Christ. We know that all Scriptures point us to Jesus Christ in some way. The primary application is a marital application. We should read this book and be instructed on love within marriage. That's the primary thing that we should take from it. And that's the main thing we took from it last week when we were in chapter 1. But then there's a secondary application, especially in chapter 2, there's a lot of really heavy secondary symbolic application that I want to get into in regard to the second coming of Christ that's very prevalent in chapter 2. We're going to get to that in a moment. But first of all, in verse 4 it says, he brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love. Pay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love. His left hand is under my head and his right hand doth embrace me. Now, when you read the term I am sick of love, this is not like we would say today that you're sick of something, meaning like you're tired of it, right? If I said, man, I'm so sick of eating this and so. When it says I'm sick of love, it's not saying, man, I'm tired of love. I'm sick of love. When she's saying I am sick of love, it's like being lovesick, right? Basically, she's saying that because of love, she's very physically ill or physically sick. Okay, love has made her sick, okay? Now, not in a bad way. Now, this isn't referring to pregnancy, by the way. That's one way that love will make you sick, right? But anyway, what this is talking about is just, you know, when people have very intense feelings of love, often it has a very strong effect on their body and can actually make you feel sick. And you've heard of people being lovesick, right? Where you're basically sick to your stomach, you're skipping meals, right? Now, what I see in this passage, you know, when we look at all of this, is that pretty much in every chapter of Song of Solomon we see very strong expressions of love between these two people. I mean, it's a very intense relationship as you read chapters one through eight of Song of Solomon. Now, I believe that this is what God intends for us to have as people that are married. As Christians that are married, that we are intended to have a loving relationship with our wife, with our husband, and that we should have intense feelings of love and strong feelings of love for our spouse. And that's what we see demonstrated in chapters one through eight of Song of Solomon. I mean, love to the point in this chapter of actually becoming physically ill, actually skipping meals, actually, you know, needing to eat apples and drink flagons in order to feel better, you know, just in order to recover. Now, I think that a lot of people have shied away from this simply because of the fact that there are a lot of people when they're young that are overcome by these type of feelings and we often call it infatuation, right? Where basically one young person becomes just obsessed with someone and just infatuated and just all lovesick and all starry-eyed for someone that they're not married to and oftentimes that love that they're feeling and that infatuation can actually make them blind to a lot of red flags about that person or a lot of things that are there that should be telling them, hey, you should not marry this person, you should stay away from this person, but they get so starry-eyed and lovesick and infatuated that they, you know, people say love is blind, right? And so because of that, you know, there's a lot of people out there that will teach that, you know, basically love's not a feeling, you know, love's not an emotion, love has nothing to do with, you know, feeling sick to your stomach and skipping meals and, you know, being infatuated and all these intense feelings, you know, and they want to basically reduce love down to a math problem, okay? And just basically take the emotion completely out of it, take the intensity completely out of it or I guess the modern word would be the romance, you know, they want to just kind of remove that out of it and just basically say, you know, well, you should just marry someone that just fits this criteria of X, Y, and Z, just find somebody that fits this criteria of X, Y, and Z and don't let your heart and your emotions and all these feelings that you're having, don't let that affect your decision. That's blinding you. You need to just base it completely on this set of parameters that you're, you know, get that virtuous woman chapter and get that list of things and find somebody that fits that criteria and marry that person. But, you know, I think that people are making a mistake when they completely divorce marriage and divorce love from this aspect of love, which is, you know, an intense, infatuated, starry-eyed feeling. You know, honestly, you should be in love with the person that you get married to and when we see these strong outpourings of love in the book of Song of Solomon, first of all, they're not between people that are single. They're between people that are married. When you're married, it's great to, to feel this way about your spouse and to just be uninhibited in the love that you show for your spouse and the love that you receive from your spouse, but what becomes dangerous is when young people that are not married succumb to these type of feelings and become too infatuated with the wrong person. But I will say this, you should not, and I'm talking to those that are single right now, you should not marry someone that you do not have feelings for. Just because, well, I'm saved, you're saved, you know, I'm single, you're single, you know, we both have the same doctrines, so let's just get married. You know, there should be some element of attraction and love there because we see that emphasized in the Bible and to just completely ignore that is to ignore many passages in the Bible besides just Song of Solomon to just say, well, you know, just don't worry about your feelings at all. Well, you know, you should have feelings for the person that you get married to, but if you're, if you're not married though, you should not get involved in an, in a relationship that is this intense, okay? Because of the fact that until you're married, until that vow is there, you don't really know whether that relationship is going to end. And so you don't want to get all these really strong feelings for someone that you're not even going to end up marrying or spending the rest of your life with. And you know, there's a danger that I've seen of people developing these really strong, intense boyfriend-girlfriend relationships that just last for years and then they break up and it's almost like they're getting divorced or something because they had such a serious relationship. And I, what I'm saying is that I don't believe that you should have a serious relationship with somebody that you're not married to, okay? Now again, I'm not saying, obviously it should go without saying that you should not be having a physical relationship with someone that you're not married to. You should not be committing the wicked sin of fornication. But I'm saying also that as a single person, you should not be in a very intense, infatuated relationship with somebody that you're not married to because it will blind you from things that should be red flags about that person and you know, basically if you're not getting married, that means that you haven't made your final decision yet, whether you're even going to be with that person. Because you know, marriage is when you make that final decision. You both make that vow and swear to one another to be with each other till death do us part. And until you've made that vow, until that bond is there, you know, you should be careful not to get too deeply involved with anyone until you get there. You see, this is one of the problems that I see also with internet dating and again, I don't want to, I'm not down on you if you met your spouse on the internet because every single person I talk to these days met their spouse on the internet, you know, so don't be ashamed if that's you because that's pretty much everybody you talk to nowadays, okay? So I'm not down on you and I'm not, I'm not saying that good relationships could not come of it, okay? I'm not saying that at all. I know plenty of people who have great marriages that that's how they met their spouse. But let me say this though, you need to be warned and cautioned of meeting someone from the internet, okay? Because just like I know a lot of people who had a really good experience with this, I know a lot of people who have really bad experiences with this, okay? Now let me just explain to you and don't get offended and mad when I say this, okay? But let me just give you something to think about and here's the thing, if you come to our church it doesn't mean you have to agree with everything that I say. I am not God, I am not infallible, I am not perfect. Some things that I preach are just God's word and then other things are things that I'm going to state that are my opinion. Just like Paul did in 1 Corinthians 7, he gave some things and he said this is not the commandment of the Lord, this is my thought on it, this is my opinion on it and I'm going to give my opinion about internet dating or meeting someone on the internet, okay? And you know, it's probably going to offend people and make people mad, I'm not trying to offend or hurt anybody's feelings or make anyone mad, but you know what, I want my kids to hear this and I want every single person that's here to hear this so that they can at least understand that there is a danger in meeting people on the internet, okay? And let me explain to you what that is, is that people present themselves on the internet differently than what they're really like in real life, okay? And this is what you have to be careful of and what happens is people will quote unquote meet on the internet and then what will happen is they're already sick of love, right? They're already, you know, obsessed and infatuated and all head over heels before they've even met the person in real life. And then what happens is, then when they meet the person in real life, there are all these red flags, but it's too late because they've already decided this person is so wonderful, this person is so great. You know, at least if you meet people in real life, you have a better feel for what they're really like before you just go head over heels, sick of love, infatuated with them, you can actually get a better feel for who they are. You can usually know a little bit more where they're coming from, maybe you might know some of their family or know some of their friends or maybe they're a friend of a friend or maybe they're from church, you know, there's a little bit of more of a background there of who you're meeting. For example, I know, and I'm not going to reveal who this is, but you know, somebody in my extended family that basically met their spouse on the internet, and when they met their spouse on the internet, they said that they were 10 years younger than they really were, okay? But you know, and then once they go on a few dates, they reveal, yeah, I'm actually 10 years older than what my profile said. But here's the thing, he already had her on the hook at that point, right? And they're married to this day, okay? But you see, he lied about his age on there, and this is the type of thing that I'm talking about because you lie about stuff like that, and then basically by the time you're already on the hook, you find out that all these things aren't really quite true or that the person isn't really quite the way that they presented themselves online. Now let me tell you a horror story. Now this predates internet dating, this predates the internet, okay? But this is another relative of mine, and I've got a story of something that was kind of like the equivalent back then, just a similar thing that happened, but this girl that's in my extended family, she one time made a phone call and accidentally dialed the wrong number, okay? Basically it was the wrong number, but the person said, oh wait, no, don't hang up, and just wanted to chat with her, okay? Just a random person, she just accidentally dialed the wrong number. So this guy's just kind of chatting with her over the phone randomly, so she chats with him and then decides, oh, she'll meet him at the mall with a friend, because she figured that would be a safe place, it's a public place, she's talking to this guy on the phone, he's a cool young guy or whatever, and she's going to bring her friend with her and meet him at the mall, this nice, safe, neutral zone. I mean, doesn't this kind of sound familiar to internet dating? You know, you're on the internet, you meet somebody, okay, we're going to meet at the mall with a friend. So she goes, her and her friend, and they meet this guy and they talk to him for a little while, and the guy's kind of weird. Oh, do you think so? I mean, he's just like picking up on some girl that just accidentally called the wrong number. So you know, the guy turns out to be a little bit weird, right? So she's like, okay, we got to go, you know, whatever, just kind of wants to get away from this guy. So her and her friend, they go out and they get in the car, and they go to drive away, and this is like, this is before cell phones, this is before internet, and she goes to drive away with her friend, and all of a sudden, the guy is behind them on a motorcycle. And all of a sudden, he just starts ramming his motorcycle into the back of the car, just, you know, just hitting the back of the car with the motorcycle. You know, she's scared, she's got no cell phone, she's freaked out, just how do we get away from this guy, okay. So that's all there is to the story, you know, you probably thought it was going to go even worse than that. But anyway, that's my horror story right there. But the bottom line is that I would say that, you know, it's better if you can just meet people in real life, you know. And maybe I'm just old fashioned, you know, because I'm 32 years old, you know. And when I was dating, there was no such thing as internet dating and all this stuff, okay. Every girl that I dated I met in real life, you know, and talked to, imagine that. But I'm just saying, young people, you need to be cautious and don't be foolish and get all excited and get all infatuated and get all head over heels over some person that you're meeting on the internet. I mean, you might be, you know, you're a young lady and you're talking to some guy on the internet, you might be talking to some guy that's 50 years old who's pretending to be a teenager. I mean, seriously, you might be talking to some weirdo, some pervert, I mean, that's just putting up photos of whoever and saying, this is me, I'm this age. I mean, it happens all the time. And you, you know, you need to be very careful. And I'm just going to tell you right now, I will, and again, don't be offended, I will not let my children take part in internet dating as long as they're living in my house. They will meet people in real life. And again, I'm not against anybody who met their spouse that way. I'm just telling you, I'm going to have that rule in my house. I can make whatever rules I want in my house. I don't see the benefit of it, you know, I think it's dangerous, and so that's my rule in my house. My children will never participate in it. But anyway, I don't know what that has to do with Song of Solomon chapter 2, but it has to do with the fact that we see people that sometimes they want to just, you know, because of that danger where they see young people getting obsessed and infatuated before the rings on the finger, you know, before they're actually married, then they basically want to just go too far in the other direction and just act like, well that just doesn't exist. That's not really love. Well the Bible calls that love though. All throughout Song of Solomon, the Bible calls physical attraction and these intense romantic type feelings, it calls it love. The Bible talks about it as love, and within marriage it's very important toward having a good marriage. And when the Bible says husbands love your wives, you know, this is part of what God means by that when he says husbands love your wives. You know, this is how husbands need to feel about their wives. There needs to be excitement there, there needs to be intensity, there needs to be a physical attraction, and that's what we see all throughout the book of Song of Solomon. We see physical affection between the husband and wife. Not between people that are single, we're not talking about people that are getting obsessed and infatuated and sick of love that are single, but people that are married. And it says here in verse number 5, Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick of love. His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me. Now look, you say, well Pastor Anderson, I don't feel that way about my wife. I don't feel that way about my husband at all. I don't have any feelings like that at all. My wife and I are more like business partners or roommates. And look, I'm telling you, many marriages are like that. It's like a business partnership, it's like two roommates living together. And you know what, that is not God's plan for marriage. And I believe that that can be fixed. I believe that the love can be rekindled in your marriage and that you shouldn't just be satisfied with that kind of a relationship. Now a lot of people will look at that and say, well I married the wrong person. I married the wrong person. But that's not true either because you know what, God wouldn't command you to do something that you're not capable of doing. If he says husbands love your wives, obviously there's a choice there where you can decide to make the effort to love your wife and that wives are commanded to love their husbands and that the older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands, to love their children. It must be possible if you're being commanded to do it. Is it a feeling? Is it emotion? Is it? Yes. But it's still something that you choose to feel or choose to go into or invest in because you see, those that are single can choose to hold back on these feelings which would be smart until they're actually committed to that person and those that are married can choose to have these feelings. Now look, I've been married for 13 years in just a few days here when my anniversary takes place. It will have been 13 years that I've been married. Now I can honestly say that when I first married my wife, when I was dating my wife and first got married to my wife, I was definitely very intensely and very strongly in love with my wife and she was with me. We had very intense, strong feelings for each other where I could relate to this passage. When we first got married, that's how it was. Now look, maybe when you first got married, maybe it wasn't like that. But when I got married, it was like that. And it was like that for a long time, but let me ask this. Do you think that in 13 years of marriage it's always been like that all the time? No, because it hasn't. There have been times when these type of feelings were not necessarily there in this intensity. Marriage has its ups and downs. As I look back on my 13 years of marriage, I can see that perhaps it was my fault. Either mistakes that I made and mistakes that my wife made as to why those feelings were not always there the way that they should have been. So I'm not saying that it's impossible to have these feelings all the time, I'm just telling you that in my experience, I love my wife very much, she loves me very much, we have a wonderful marriage, but I'm saying that there were times when these feelings were not necessarily there in this intensity and where there were lower points in our marriage and other points that were high points in the marriage. Even though when we started out, we were definitely in love with each other and definitely had this in our lives. And the thing is that a lot of people, when there's a low point in the marriage or when things are going poorly, they bail out of marriage. They quit. And they think to themselves, oh, I was just infatuated, I made a mistake, I married the wrong person. I mean, you hear this kind of stupidity, I just don't know if I love him anymore, right? I just don't know if I love her anymore. I just don't think I love her. It's like shut up and do what the Bible told you to do and love your spouse. Love your husband. Love your wife. But you hear people just, I just don't know if I love him anymore. Well, you know what? Then why don't you fix it? Fix the problem. Okay? And people just resign themselves as I don't love him anymore. Now look, I think that there's a natural tendency that obviously when the relationship is new, it's going to be very intense and then sometimes, you know, over time the newness wears off so to speak. And, you know, you might go through a phase and look, by the way, I see the same thing when people get saved or when people get in church. Okay, you'll see people who when they first come to Faithful Word Baptist Church, it's their first time in a soul winning church, man, they're excited. They're fired up. They're going to all three services. They're just hanging on every word of the preaching. They're going home and listening to it again. Man, they can't wait for church. They can't wait to go soul winning. They think it's the greatest place in the world and you see those people eventually the newness wears off. Isn't that true? It's not just marriage, it's anything, okay? Where there's that initial, it's new, it's exciting, you know, where it's just easy to be excited about it because it's so new. Okay, but here's the thing though. You see a lot of people when the newness wears off, they bail out of church. Pretty soon they're only coming once a week, then they're coming three times a month. They're not doing the soul winning. Pretty soon they're completely gone. And some of the most excited, zealous, fired up people, you know, Brother Dave's nodding his head because he's been here for, you know, what, six and a half years or seven years. So he's seen people like this over and over again, just people that you thought, man, this guy's fired up, he's excited. And then they're not there anymore, okay? But here's the thing, you see other people though who out of character hang in there, stay with it and listen, church becomes exciting again. Soul winning becomes exciting again. Reading your Bible becomes exciting again. Okay, but here's the thing, a lot of people bail before they get to that point. And so look, there are times in marriage where you may be going through a period that is a low point in your marriage where maybe the newness has worn off, maybe it's just not as exciting as it was, maybe you just don't have very strong feelings for your wife or your husband. You can rekindle that flame and if you stay with it and get through that, and maybe you need to make some changes in your life, maybe your spouse needs to make some changes in their life, you know, you can fix it and you can get to a point where you can have these type of feelings and this type of intensity of love in your heart for your spouse once again. And by the way, if you feel this way about your spouse, the way that Song of Solomon chapter 2 teaches here and the way chapter 1 taught and the way the rest of the book teaches, do you think you're going out and looking to commit adultery? I guarantee you, I guarantee you that 99% of adultery is people not having the right relationship with their spouse. Because if you have the right relationship with your spouse, you're not looking for anything else. You're satisfied, you're happy, you're excited about that person, you're not looking for everything else. And look, I'm not condoning adultery, it's so wicked, it's so ungodly, but let me say this though, you could eliminate 99% of it by having the right marriage. Look, the Bible says lead us not into temptation. And I can tell you, you have the right relationship with your spouse, there is no temptation to commit adultery, none, zero. What's the point? If you're happy with what you have, if you're content with what you have, if you're excited about what you have, why would you be looking for something else? You wouldn't be. And you say, well, why do you even preach on it? Why do you care, Pastor Anderson, whether I'm excited about my wife or not? I pay the bills, I go to work, I'm faithful to my wife, because you know what? If you're smart, you'll have a good relationship with your spouse so that you're not tempted and she's not tempted. And just frankly because you should enjoy your life a little bit, and enjoy marriage and enjoy your children. And you know what? By the way, set a good example for your children. You don't want to teach your children, you know, being married stinks. It's the old ball and chain. You know what I mean? It's just, you know, be sure that you have fun before you get married, kids. Don't get married too young, you know. Be sure you go out and see the world and have fun, because when you get married, all fun is over. Okay, but that's, look, you know that's how people's attitude is. You know that's what this world thinks. You know that's what they teach. And so it is important to have this type of relationship with your spouse. And you know what, if you hang in there, and look, I can honestly say, I can stand up here, and I'm not just blowing smoke, I'm not just using rhetoric or trying to be extreme to make a point. I can honestly say that after being married for more than a decade, my feelings for my wife are more intense than they were when I first got married. You know, and that might be hard to believe, but honestly I go, you know, and I'm not saying that it's always been that way, but I'm saying that there have been periods after over a decade of marriage where I felt about my wife and she felt about me more intensely than we did even when we were first married, even when we were newlyweds, where we had stronger feelings of love and affection than we had ever had. That shows you, and I'm not exaggerating at all, that shows you that you can have that within marriage. You don't have to keep switching, you know, spouses in order to enjoy that feeling. And that's what people do today in the world. That's why you see people on their fourth marriage, right? The newness wears off, get a new one. And I mean, that's where you have people getting married eight times, because you know what, it takes about two years for the newness to wear off on average. I read a statistic somewhere, and you know, and basically, you know, two years, the first two years are great. Then the newness wears off, then they just kind of suffer through it for a while, then they get divorced, then they go find another one, and oh, this is so great! You're so much better than the last one! Okay, and then a couple years later, same thing, same fights, same problems, same issues, you know, often because you were the problem, not them. But what I'm saying is that if you hang in there and stay with marriage, maybe you can learn things through the preaching of God's Word, through the reading of God's Word. You can make changes in your life, your spouse can make changes in their life, and you know what, you can eventually get to a point where you have a great marriage once again. So if your marriage is suffering tonight, don't give up on it. Don't throw in the towel. Hang in there, because it can even get better than it's ever been if you'll stay with it, if you hang in there. And by the way, I've talked to many, many people. I just talked to somebody less than a week ago who told me the same thing. A lot of people have told me that at the 10 year mark, their marriage got dramatically better at the 10 year mark. For some reason, it just got better. I can think of three separate people in my mind right now that have told me that. Right about 10 years in, things just got a lot better. But how many people bail after 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, when really, you know, there was that light at the end of the tunnel right there and they could have a great marriage once again and fix their problems and get along with one another. I just wanted to say that first of all, you should marry someone that you have feelings for, not just like this arranged marriage mentality of where you're just put with somebody. But at the same time, once you're married, even if you've never had those type of feelings, I think that those type of feelings can be developed over time and that God commands you to do it and so you should work at it. You say, well how do I do it? How am I going to love my spouse if I just don't love my husband or I just don't love my wife? You know what? Part of it is that you need to make an investment in your marriage and make an investment of time into that person because you know what? The Bible says God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and you know, if you give of yourself and give of your time and the Bible says husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. You know, if you give of your time and your energy and you invest in something, then you will have stronger feelings about it. For example, you know, let's say I were to invest my money in a business, right? Let's say I invested my money in a business that was starting up, well now all of a sudden I care about that business, how it's doing. And even if I invested just a little bit of money, and even if I didn't really care if I lost the money, it was just a small amount of money though, I would take pride if that business one day became a big booming business, I'd say, man yeah, I invested in that business. I had something to do with that. You know, you'll see a lot of times churches will build a building. The people who work on the building, who do the physical work, you know, they're probably more likely to stay at that church because they invested in it, they worked on that building and so they feel connected to it. Other people who maybe contributed to the church financially or contributed with their manpower of soul winning and you know, just cleaning the building and just, whatever you invest in, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. You know, you spend money on someone, you'll probably have stronger feelings for that person. You spend time on someone, you're going to have stronger feelings for that person. You do nice things for someone, you're going to like them more, okay? And so those are, you know, I don't have time to go into all that tonight, but honestly, you know, I'm not going to go into the how tonight, but there is a way to improve your marriage and there are other sermons I've preached about that. Just don't give up on it and you should have these type of strong feelings in your heart for your spouse and if you don't have them, you should try to develop them and you should try to have a marriage that is fulfilling for you and your spouse so that you can not be tempted to look somewhere else, you know? But now as we get into chapter 7, I'm sorry, chapter 2 verse 7, we get into a part of the Song of Solomon here that has really strong prophetic implications because when we see here that the Bible talks about the husband saying, rise up my love, my fair one and come away, it's interesting if you compare this to the second coming of Christ and the rapture, just how much of it fits together. Let me show you. It says in verse 7, I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the rose and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up nor awake my love till he please. The voice of my beloved, behold he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. My beloved is like a row or a young heart. Behold he standeth behind our wall. He looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice. My beloved spake and said unto me, rise up my love, my fair one and come away, for lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one and come away. Now keep your finger here and turn to Matthew 24 if you would, Matthew chapter 24, which is a great passage on the second coming of Jesus Christ, Matthew 24. Now a lot of people will say this, they'll say, you know, hey don't confuse the rapture with the second coming of Christ. Two different events, but hold on a second. That's the most famous rapture passage, 1 Thessalonians 4, and you know what it says in 1 Thessalonians 4? That we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep, for the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, the dead in Christ shall rise first, and we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds. So the Bible calls the rapture the coming of the Lord, or the coming of Christ, and since He already came the first time in Bethlehem's manger, that one, can everybody count with me? One, two, that'd be the second coming, right? Okay. But anyway, it says in Matthew 24 in verse 29, it says, immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other. And here's the part I want you to pay special attention to. Now learn a parable of the fig tree. When his branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near even at the doors. So he's using the fig tree as an illustration, saying, when you see the fig tree have the leaves starting to come up on it, that's when you know that summer is near. So likewise ye, he says, when you see these things come to pass, then you'll know that this is near, the coming of Christ, his coming in the clouds for the elect, the trumpet sounding. It's even at the doors. Flip over to Luke chapter number 21. Luke chapter 21, and I'll show you how this ties in with Song of Solomon chapter 2. Look at Luke 21, it says in a parallel passage here, verse 27, and then shall they see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory, and when these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. You say, well that's not talking to us. But when he says you, that's not me, he's not talking to me. Who's he talking to? Oh, the Jews. No, because he calls the Jews this people in verse number, let's see here, verse number 20, 21, 22, he talks about wrath upon this people, 23, is that where it is? Yeah, there we go. Wrath upon this people, these people, they're going to do this. Their hearts are failing them for fear. Okay, that's them, that's the Jews. This is talking to believers, because he even says at the end of Mark 13, what I say unto you I say unto all, watch. He says when you see these things begin to come to pass, look up for your redemption draweth nigh. He's talking to the believer and he says when you see these things, and the things are the tribulation of those days, followed by the sun and moon being darkened, followed by Christ coming in the clouds, when you see those things, look up your redemption draweth nigh. And he uses the leaves of the fig tree as an illustration of those things. You see the leaves on the fig tree, you know summer's near. You see these things happen, tribulation, sun and moon, then you'll know that his coming is nigh. Then you'll know that your redemption is nigh. Flip back to Song of Solomon 2 with that in mind. In Song of Solomon 2, verse number 10, it says my beloved spake and said unto me, rise up my love, my fair one, and come away. So basically he's calling her to be with him and he's even using the word rise up, which indicates going upward, right? Rise up my love, my fair one, and come away. And then one of the things that he says is, for lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. Now the rain being over and gone, of course we know that April showers bring May flowers. So therefore we're talking about, you know, late spring when all the springtime rain is over and gone, all the former and the latter rain is gone. So we're basically late spring, heading towards summer, and he says in verse 13, the fig tree putteth forth her green figs and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. So basically in Song of Solomon chapter 2 we see that, you know, she's not called up or called to rise up or to arise and to come away with him until the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, and until the fig tree putteth forth the green figs. So this supports further that Matthew 24 is talking about the rapture, you know, not that it needed any more support, because there's already so much, but it just again just lines up with it perfectly that the fig tree basically blossoms and has the leaves and the figs before the rapture takes place, and that is a symbol of basically the tribulation, sun and moon darkened, those are the things we watch for just like you'd watch the fig tree to have leaves and figs to know what season it is, to know when the summer is coming. So we see the identical thing in Song of Solomon chapter 2, and then there are other things that are similar. Like for example it says in verse 8 of Song of Solomon 2, the voice of my beloved. Now of course the Bible says that he'll descend from heaven with a shout, right? So there's the voice right there. The voice of my beloved, behold he cometh, and then it says, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills. Now try to picture this. Picture a man leaping upon the mountains and skipping upon the hills. Now what do you picture? Everybody just get this in your mind's eye. A man leaping on the mountains and skipping upon the hills, and he's basically using his voice to say, arise my love, my fair one, and come away. So he's coming together, but look, obviously he's moving quickly, right? Jumping and skipping denotes that he's going fast. I picture somebody running on the mountains, because if you've ever run on mountains, you're basically leaping and skipping when you run. Now if you're running on a flat surface, you know, you're just running, right? But when you're on mountains, you are basically doing a lot of jumping and skipping, because mountains are filled with uneven surfaces, up hills, down hills. We go running sometimes at South Mountain, right? One mile away there's a trailhead where you go up really steep hills and steep mountains of running, and there are rocks, and you know, you're kind of like going like this, like dodging the rocks, and you know, it's a leaping and skipping type of movement. And when we compare this with the second coming of Christ, what does Jesus say over and over again about his coming? Behold I come quickly. Now look at the last verse of the book of Song of Solomon. In the last verse of the book of Song of Solomon, it says in chapter 8 verse 14, make haste. What does that mean? You're going fast. Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe or to a young heart upon the mountains of Bethar. Now roes and hearts are basically deer, and deer are known for moving very fast, for leaping and skipping very quickly and moving quickly. So in Song of Solomon chapter 2, it says, behold he cometh in verse 8, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills, my beloved is like a roe or a young heart, which is exactly what was found in the last verse of Song of Solomon, talking about the speed, making haste. Now what does it say at the very end of the Bible? One of the last things in the Bible is, behold I come quickly. And it says, even so, come Lord Jesus. And so this is more symbolism of the second coming of Christ. He's coming quickly. He's coming with a shout. It says here that in verse 9, my beloved is like a roe or a young heart, behold he standeth behind our wall, he looketh forth at the windows, showing himself through the lattice. You know, this is similar to Jesus Christ coming in the clouds, because what is a lattice? A lattice is basically a network or some kind of a, you know, we have a lattice work that's by our carport at our house. It's like a grid that's cocked diagonally, right? The wooden lattice. Who knows what a lattice is? Okay, good. I'll stop explaining it then. So you know, if you think of someone looking through a lattice, you kind of see them and you kind of don't see them, you know what I mean? Because basically it's, you can see through the lattice, but it's somewhat obscured. You know, this makes me think of Christ coming in the clouds. You know, basically a cloud you could see through, but it's still, it's cloudy. You know, it's obscure, obscuration. So there's more symbolism there. My beloved spake and said unto me, rise up my love, my fair one, and come away, for lo the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise my love, my fair one, and come away. And so it's very symbolic of the second coming of Christ, and what's interesting is that the verse before all that, in verse 7 says, I charge you, O you daughters of Jerusalem, by the rose and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love till he please. Then all of a sudden he's coming. So I looked up scriptures on, you know, basically the Lord sleeping and waking. And I don't have time to turn there because it's late, but in the book of Psalms, I found a few places in the book of Psalms where it talked about God's people being greatly persecuted, and God's people suffering, and David is praying to God saying, God, when are you going to awake? When are you going to awake out of your sleep and basically judge these people? When are you going to come and avenge us? And you know, that's basically the same symbolism with the tribulation. If you think about it, you know, God's people are suffering, they're going through trials, and it's like, God, when are you going to awake, God? And if you remember even in the opening of the fifth seal in Revelation 6, they're saying, how long, O Lord, holy and true dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? So basically, God coming, two different times in the book of Psalms, God coming and being awake out of sleep is used as a metaphor of the fact that he allows his people to suffer, then he steps in and delivers them and judges them. So it's a perfect picture of the rapture here, and it lines up perfectly with Matthew 24, a lot of other scriptures. So it says that we stir not up nor awake, my love, till he please. Basically he's going to come at a time that pleases him. No man knoweth the day or the hour of his coming. Just like in this passage, they don't really know when he's going to wake up. They don't know when he's coming. They just say, you know, don't stir him up or wake him until he pleases. He comes at an unknown hour, just like the Bible says that of his second coming, no man knoweth the day or the hour in Matthew 24. So anyway, it's really interesting that even in the book of Song of Solomon, there's Bible prophecy. And you know, I find Bible prophecy in pretty much all 66 books, it's a major subject of the second coming of Christ. It's found all throughout Old Testament and New Testament, and yet so many preachers just don't even preach on it whatsoever, even though it's a major theme of the Bible, because they're so confused by the pre-tribulation rapture that none of this would make any sense to them. I mean, try to look at this if you're pre-trib. I mean, how does it work? You know, here it says that she's to rise up after the fig tree putteth forth the green figs. Jesus said the fig tree puts forth its leaves is likened unto the tribulation, sun and moon being darkened and Christ coming into the clouds. When you see those things, it's like seeing the fig tree. Oh, the fig tree's Israel. That's not what Jesus said. Jesus said when you see a fig tree put forth its leaves, you know summer's near, likewise when you see these things come to pass, you'll know it's night end. Did he mention Israel becoming a nation in 1948? Is that what he said? No. He said you'll see wars, famine, pestilence, great tribulation, sun and moon darkened, Christ coming into the clouds. When you see those things, you'll know that it's near. He didn't even mention the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers founding the nation of Israel in 1948 through the Satanic United Nations. See what I mean how people just add to the Bible? But when you get rid of that false doctrine, it makes perfect sense putting Song of Solomon 2 side by side with Matthew 24. They fit together perfectly. But I have to hurry. It says in verse 14, oh my dove that art in the clefts of the rock and the secret places of the stairs, let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice, for sweet is thy voice and thy countenance is comely. Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes. A fox is always a bad animal in the Bible. Remember Jesus called Herod that fox? And the Bible also, there's a chapter in Ezekiel where he likens false prophets and bad preachers unto foxes. So he says here that the foxes will spoil the vines for the vines have tender grapes. He says the little foxes that spoil the vines, you know this reminds me of Ecclesiastes when he said, a little folly will destroy basically the name of one who's in reputation for wisdom and honor. A little sin in your life can cause big problems. And you know in your marriage, sometimes just making little changes can greatly improve your marriage, and sometimes little things can really mess up your marriage. Just small changes, just small improvements and things, you know we need to be careful of allowing little things to come in and become a big problem. You know we might just look at our sins and say, well this is just a little sin. And you know what, there are little sins, but those little sins can sometimes spoil the vines and destroy our lives and destroy our marriage. So everything matters. You know sometimes you'll try to preach something from the Bible and people say, oh that's just a little thing. Yeah but Jesus said that whosoever shall break one of the least commandments shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever will do and teach them, the same should be called great in the kingdom of heaven. He says in verse 16, my beloved is mine and I am his, he feedeth among the lilies, until the day break and the shadows flee away, turn my beloved and be thou like a roe or a young heart upon the mountains of Beathor. And again we can compare that to the second coming of Christ as you know the shadows fleeing away, the day breaking, that glorious day when Jesus Christ returns in the clouds and he comes quickly for us. Let me point out verse 16 because you know we're talking a lot about marriage when we talk about the book of Song of Solomon and you know last week if you weren't here you need to listen to the sermon because I covered a lot of great things to improve your marriage from chapter 1 and there's going to be a lot more to improve your marriage from chapters 3 through 8 and there's a lot of great things that we can learn. But in verse 16 here's an important key to having a good marriage, it says, my beloved is mine and I am his, he feedeth among the lilies. You know what do we see in that verse? Possession. Do we not? We see possessiveness. My beloved is mine, meaning he belongs to me and I am his, I belong to him. Now a lot of people today will criticize you if you are possessive of your spouse. They'll say, oh man, you know, he's just so possessive or she is so possessive, right? And they'll accuse you of being a jealous husband or a jealous wife and I say guilty as charged, I'm very jealous of my wife, okay? Because you know I'm very possessive of my wife and you say, oh you think you own your wife? I do own my wife but she owns me. You know this is something that goes two ways. Now the authority structure in my home only goes one way, but when it comes to possessiveness it goes both ways. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 7 that the woman hath not power of her own body but the husband and likewise also the husband hath not power of his own body but the wife. There is a possessiveness, now look, you say well how's that going to improve my marriage? Because I'll tell you this, you know when you feel like something belongs to you, when you feel like you possess something, when you feel like you own something, you're going to take better care of it than if it's something that you don't own. Isn't that the truth? You know I rent cars all the time and my motto is drive it like you rented it. Because look, when you're renting a car, you don't treat it the same way as you treat your own car. Or how about this, here's a better example because you know you do have to turn it in when you're done and prove that it has no damage, but think about this. What about when you're driving the company vehicle versus your own vehicle? What do you take better care of? You know I remember when I worked for my first job where I had my own company vehicle, everybody in this company, whenever they'd go into the store to buy anything, Home Depot, gas station, whatever, they would just always just leave the keys in the ignition of the car. They would never take the keys out and put it in their pocket. And I would say to people, why are you just leaving the keys in the ignition? What if they get stolen? They'd just be like, I don't care. Isn't that weird? Who's ever seen people do that with a couple people? Alright, I thought it was just that one company. I thought it was the weirdest thing because I wouldn't just go inside somewhere and just leave the key in the ignition. They'd just leave it unlocked, keys in the ignition, it's not my truck, I don't care. Some people have that attitude, don't they? But you know what, all of us treat things better when they belong to us rather than things that are just shared or things that are borrowed. You know, when you feel like you own something and when you feel like something is yours, you know, have you ever heard this term, pride of ownership? You take pride in what's yours. And you know what, if I feel like my wife is mine, right, and she belongs to me and I'm possessive of her, then it makes me want to treat her better and to take good care of her and to protect her and to treat her well and to nourish her because she's mine. But you know what, if I felt like my wife were just rebellious against me, if I just felt like my wife is just, hasn't really given me all of her heart or that she's really thinking about other people she'd rather be with or, you know, she doesn't really see me as her husband or as an authority figure or as, you know, her, I don't know, you know what I mean, her husband. If she didn't see me that way, you know what, I probably wouldn't really feel as much like taking care of her and being as good to her because I wouldn't feel that ownership and that possession. You say, you sound like a madman but you know what though, I have a great marriage, okay, and I'll tell you why, because I own my wife and she belongs to me and look, she owns all of me. She has all my love, all my affection, and I only have eyes for her and you know what, that's going to improve your marriage when you get that mentality, you know. And this is step one for you if you don't have a good marriage is, you know, you need to get verse 16 down, my beloved is mine and I am his. And get that and make that your mantra and make that your motto and understand, you know, and take pride in your wife is what I'm saying. Take pride in your husband, say, this is my husband, and look, you see it over and over again in this book, this is my beloved, this is my friend, this is my love among the daughter, this is my, you know, just saying over and over again, he is mine, my beloved is mine, I'm his. I mean, you see that over and over again in this book. And so that's something that could probably help you have the right mentality about your marriage is both husbands and wives to get a possessive mentality about your spouse and to see them as yours and to really feel that they belong to you and that you belong to them. You know, that is part of having a great marriage. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much for this book and help us to learn everything that we can from it and to put it into practice in our lives. Please just help us to study the Bible. It's so deep. There's so much imagery and symbolism of the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for those teachings. But God, please help us not to miss the primary application of just reading eight chapters about a husband and wife that are infatuated with each other, that are in love with each other, that are physically attracted to each other, that are expressing their love physically, that are excited about one another, and that feel possession and ownership for one another. Help us to have those.