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Now in Song of Solomon chapter 6 verse 1 the Bible reads, Whither is thy beloved God, O thou fairest among women? Whither is thy beloved turned aside, that we may seek him with thee? My beloved has gone down into his garden, to the bed of spices, to feed in the gardens and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine. He feedeth among the lilies. Now in chapter 6 we pick up right where we left off in chapter 5 where she's talking about going out and seeking for her beloved and the daughters of Jerusalem are answering her and this conversation is going back and forth. Then in verse 4 of chapter 6 her husband speaks in return. He says, Thou art beautiful, O my love, as Tirzah. Comely as Jerusalem, terrible as an army with banners. Turn away thine eyes from me, for they have overcome me. Thy hair is as a flock of goats that appear from Gilead. So again this chapter has a lot of complimenting of each other once again. You know we have the husband complimenting his wife very heavily again. At the end of chapter 5 it was the wife that was really complimenting her husband, talking about her husband's good looks and all his different attributes that she liked. Now it might seem repetitive but you know it's the Bible that's being really repetitive here as we go through the book of Song of Solomon pretty much every chapter keeps having this recurring theme of the husband and wife paying each other a lot of compliments. And I think that God's trying to show us here that this is an important part of expressing our love in marriage. You know everybody likes to receive a compliment. Even the toughest, baddest dude you know he still wants his wife to compliment him. He still likes her to tell him how great he is and how good looking he is and how cool he is. And so we need to be careful that we don't just you know get remiss in this area and just forget about this and slack in this area. We as husbands should compliment our wives a lot, especially because today a lot of women are insecure about their appearance and they need to be assured that we find them beautiful and that we love them. He's telling her here in verse number 4, thou art beautiful my love. But then he doesn't just stop there by saying that she's beautiful, he goes into great detail. Now in chapter 6 he's really laying it on thick here. I mean look at verse number 5 where he really lays it on thick. He says in verse 5, turn away thine eyes from me for they have overcome me. You know I mean he's just saying like I can't even handle it. You know you're so beautiful I can't even process it. You know I just can't even take it. And so you know again, I don't think that we should be fake. I don't think that we should just you know put on a show. I think it should be sincere when we compliment our spouse and when we express our love you know to our wife or to our husband. We need to be sincere, it needs to be real, but it should be serious. You know I mean this is a pretty intense compliment here and we should work on this in our life. Now part of this is that it has to come from your heart. You know saying things that aren't from the heart, it's usually pretty easy for your spouse who lives with you every day to be able to figure out what's for real and what isn't. Now it's interesting if you go back to chapter 5, the group of ladies here, the daughters of Jerusalem, they ask the wife here in verse 9, "'What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? What is thy beloved more than another beloved that thou dost so charge us?'" So basically the daughters of Jerusalem are saying to her, look what different is your husband than any other guy? Why do you think he's so great? Why do you think he's so amazing? He's just another guy. He's just like everybody else's beloved. But I think what the Bible is showing us here is that we should believe and we should feel about our spouse as if they are the greatest person in the world. I mean we should think of our wife as not just someone that we are settling for, but we should love our wife with all our heart and think of her as the greatest woman in the world. And you wives should think of your husband as the greatest guy in the world. And you know anything else is covetousness. When you basically wish that you were married to some other man or you wish that you had some other wife, you know that's a wicked thought of covetousness. And so we should believe that our spouse is the greatest. And if they weren't, well then why did you marry them? But anyway, you should have that kind of love for your spouse and express that. And that's what we see in chapters 5 and 6 here with all these compliments that are going back and forth. Now it's interesting in verse 6 it says, "'Thy teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing, whereof everyone beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them.'" Now this is the second time in the book of Song of Solomon that this statement has come up. He's talking about her teeth, he's complimenting her teeth how white they are, so he's using sheep as the example. But it's interesting because there's another symbolic meaning here. First of all we see that the sheep, it says they all bear twins and there's not one barren among them. That doesn't really affect the color of the sheep. But what we see constantly in the book of Song of Solomon is a culture that sees being fruitful and multiplying as being a very beautiful thing, or as being very attractive, or as being something that's very desirable. You know if you remember at the end of chapter 1 verse 17, I'm sorry verse 16 of chapter 1 it says, "'Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea pleasant, also our bed is green.'" Green referring to being fruitful, reproducing. He talks a lot about sheep, that none of them is barren, they all produce twins. Now we in our society don't necessarily look at things this way because we've been brainwashed by the world that producing a lot of children is a bad thing. And that basically we're overpopulating the world, we're using up way too many carbon credits and we need to control the population, we need to slow down on having children. And then another thing that you'll often see is that basically people will act as if women who've given birth multiple times are unattractive. Oh, you know, you don't want to have too many kids, it's going to destroy your looks, right? But see here, that's not what we see in this passage. We see, you know, reproducing as being something that's glorified, something that's lifted up, something that's good. And the Bible all the way back in Genesis 1 told us to be fruitful and multiply. He said, lo, children are in heritage of the Lord and the fruit of the womb is his reward. He said, children are a blessing, children are in heritage of the Lord, happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate. And so the Bible has a totally different philosophy about being fruitful than what the world has. For some people, this is a derogatory statement to say, you know, that a woman is very prolific, you know, and they basically say that like, oh man, she's having all these kids. But in reality, the Bible teaches that that's a glorious thing. That's something to be proud of, something to be happy about. But if we were to take a spiritual application of this, it's interesting because he says here that her teeth are as a flock of sheep which go up from the washing whereof everyone beareth twins and there is not one barren among them. What's interesting is that the church in the New Testament is always referred to as the flock. You know, for example, Peter talks about and Paul talks about the church as being the flock and he talks to the bishops or the pastors and he tells them to feed the flock of God over which the Holy Ghost has made them overseers. So the church is like a flock. And of course, if you would turn to 2 Peter chapter 1, 2 Peter chapter 1 talks about being fruitful and I want to make it really clear what it means to be fruitful as a Christian. You know, being fruitful means that you are reproducing. Everything brings forth after its own kind. You know, in the creation passage in Genesis chapter 1, all of the animals were commanded by God to be fruitful and multiply. Then human beings were commanded by God. Be fruitful and multiply. And over and over again, it says that the plants and the animals and mankind brought forth after their own kind. They brought forth fruit, okay? The Bible talks about being married that you might bring forth fruit in Romans chapter 7. Okay, so what we see is that bringing forth fruit is reproducing. An apple, when it is buried into the earth, you know, that seed will grow into a tree and produce apples. The fruit of the apple is more apples. The fruit of that orange is more orange. The fruit of the Christian is other Christians. That's why the Bible says the fruit of the righteous is the tree of life and he that winneth souls is wise. Now a lot of people will say, oh, the fruit of the Christian is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, meekness, faith. No, that's the fruit of the spirit. He brings forth after his own kind because he is love. God is love. He's the oil of gladness. He's the prince of peace. He brings forth after his own kind. That's not our fruit. When the Bible talks about Christians bringing forth fruit, he says some 30 fold, some 60, some 100. You can't have 100 joy or 30 peace, but you can win 30 people to Christ. You could win 60 souls to Christ. And so that is talking about bringing forth spiritual children. Like Paul often referred to people that he won to Christ as his sons in the faith or his children. He said, I've begotten you through the Gospel. So when we go out and win somebody to Christ, we have reproduced ourselves. Now instead of one Christian, there are two. That is bringing forth fruit. God does not want us to be unfruitful. Look at 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 8, it says, for if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Remember back in Song of Solomon, it talked about a flock of sheep where none of them was unfruitful. None of them was barren, the Bible said. But look, the Bible tells us here what's going to keep us from becoming unfruitful. Back up a little bit to verse 5. It says, beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity. Those are all works that we should be doing. You know, after we have faith, after we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation, he says, hey, we need to add to that faith, you know, virtue, knowledge, patience, temperance, all these things. All these works that we're supposed to be doing. And he says if we do that, then none of us will be barren or unfruitful. Now what's interesting is that he said in Song of Solomon that her teeth were like a flock of sheep, listen to this, which go up from the washing whereof everyone beareth twins and there is not one barren among them. You know, one of the things that needs to happen in our life in order for us not to be barren or unfruitful is that we need to be cleaned up. We need to be washed of some things. And that's what the Bible's talking about here in 2 Peter. Look he's saying we need to have virtue in our lives. We need to have temperance in our lives. We need to get sin out of our life. And the Bible talks about this. He says that without him we can do nothing. He says he is the vine and we are the branches. And if we abide in him, we will bring forth much fruit. But he says this, he says that every branch that is in him that brings forth fruit, he said he purges it so that it will bring forth more fruit. See if we bring forth fruit in our lives, God will have to sometimes purge us, meaning that he will cut off things that don't belong in our life. He'll remove all the junk, all the worthless things that are in our life so that we will be able to bring forth more fruit after we've been purged. And that goes perfectly with what it says in Song of Solomon about being washed. And then you're not going to be barren. You're not going to be unfruitful. The Bible says in Ephesians 5, go there, a good marriage passage, Ephesians chapter 5, along a similar line here in Ephesians chapter 5, it says in verse number 25 of Ephesians chapter 5, husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Watch this. That he might sanctify it and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish. So what we see here is that the church is supposed to be sanctified or made holy. After we get saved, after we believe on Jesus Christ, we're supposed to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we should constantly be repenting of sin, we should constantly be growing in grace, we should constantly be getting washed up by the water of the word, getting cleaned up by going to church, hearing the preaching of God's word, reading the Bible ourselves, and the Bible teaches that the more we clean up our lives, the more fruit we're going to bring forth. The more we are purged, the more we will produce fruit. And a lot of people don't understand this and the New Evangelical movement has completely missed this because they say let's never preach on sin, let's not worry about sin, let's not judge that, let's just not worry about that, they just say let's just worry about getting people saved. But what they don't understand is that if they would be purged of a lot of sin, they'll get more people saved. You know, a church that is an unclean church, a church that is a filthy church, a church that is a church that is filled with sin and iniquity and ungodliness and worldliness and there's fornication going on, there's drunkenness going on, everybody is just into covetousness and the love of money and people are not living a clean and godly and separated life and everybody's rotting their brain on TV and reading a bunch of dirty magazines. Look, that church is not going to be a fruitful church. And you say, oh, we can do both, you know, we can live a life of sin and we can go out and win people to Christ, but you're going to be ineffective in soul winning if you're not living a clean and separated life. And I remember when I first got in a soul winning church, I was pretty worldly and I was very ineffective in my soul winning and as I started to clean up my life and get the sin out of my life, that's when I started becoming more effective and it was very obvious the change that took place because if we're filled with the spirit, we're going to be more effective. Well, guess what? When you're constantly fulfilling the lust of the flesh or when you're constantly doing the works of the flesh and living in sin, you're not filled with the spirit, therefore you're not going to be effective soul winning because you're in the flesh, okay. So I thought that was pretty interesting in Song of Solomon 6, how it says they come up from the washing, it's a flock that's a washed flock that's a clean flock and it says, everyone beareth twins and there is not one barren among them. Would to God that it would be said a faithful word Baptist church, there's not one barren among them. Not one barren among them. I mean, I constantly get this compliment about our church. People who come and visit our church, sometimes they'll just come and spend a Sunday with us or maybe spend several days with us. I just got this compliment, in fact, over the phone yesterday, a guy who'd been here a few years back and he said, you know what I love about your church is that everybody goes soul winning and everybody is fired up. Everybody loves God. Everybody's reading their Bible and he kept emphasizing how just everybody's a soul winner. That's a great testimony of our church but let's keep it that way and if you're that one that's barren, you know, it's time for you to get cleaned up and washed up and man, show up for soul winning. Get out with us. Look, it's not that hard. It's a lot easier than carrying a cross up a hill and being nailed to it. It's a lot easier than living a perfect life for 33 years. It's a lot easier than going up into a mountain and praying all night to just show up as soul winning, right, and just be a silent partner. You don't have to do the talking. You can just listen and learn. You know, a lot of people spend months like that just as a silent partner, just praying, just being there, just going and supporting and learning. You know, there's all these soul winning times, all days of the week, all parts of town. Let's be a church where nobody's barren or unfruitful among us. Let's all get washed up in the Word. Let's all read the Bible and listen to the preaching. Let's clean up our lives little by little, line upon line, precept upon precept. Let's get better and more sanctified and let's all participate in bringing forth fruit. All be preaching the Gospel. All be witnessing for the Lord, okay? That's the vision that I have for our church. And you know what? That's what people love about our church when they visit it. Because a lot of people might listen to the preaching online and they're just listening to one person, one man. But then when they show up, they're blown away. You know, this isn't a one man show. You know, they show up and it's just a church filled with people that are serving God, that are zealous of soul winning and zealous of the Word of God. That's what people who just listen in online are missing out on. You know, they're missing out on all the great people that are here. But thank God that our church is like that. And thank God this guy who visited years ago was saying that. And I told him, I said, well guess what? Our church is twice as big now, but it's exactly the same way where everybody is zealous. Everybody's on board. I love our church that it's in one accord. So he says in verse number 7, as he continues to compliment his wife's beauty, he says, "'As a piece of pomegranate are thy temples within thy locks. There are three score queens and four score concubines and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled, is but one.'" Now, we know that eventually King Solomon had how many wives and how many concubines? Who knows? Seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, right? Now this must have been a little earlier in his life, right? I guess this kind of tells us when the book was written. Because at this point it gives a completely different number, a much lower number because it says there are three score queens. That's sixty. Sixty queens and eighty concubines at this stage. See this is obviously earlier in his reign. Eventually there would be seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Now you say, why in the world would anyone have seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines? Okay, obviously that's a very strange thing to do. Now you say, well, you know, Solomon did it, therefore it's okay. Let's go be a Latter-day Saint, right? But no, it's not okay. It's never been okay. The Bible has never condoned of having multiple wives. You know, if you look at the first person who ever had two wives, I don't know if anybody knows who that is, but it was one of Cain's descendants. It was Lamech who had two wives. That was not the godly line through Seth. It was Cain's descendants that started this practice of polygamy. And then later on, you see it catch on amongst God's people, and you see people commit this sin, but God specifically about kings said, he shall not multiply wives. I mean, he specifically told them, do not multiply wives. But pretty much all of them did it. Most of them did it. You know, that power just went to their head or whatever. But they all had multiple wives. But just because they did it, that doesn't make it right. Now, one of the things that we notice with King Solomon is that a lot of these wives that he was marrying were for political reasons. See, Solomon was a man of peace. He wasn't one who was a great conqueror who fought a lot of war, warfare. David fought the wars, Solomon inherited that kingdom, and then he forged a lot of political alliances and one of the ways that he forged those alliances is he would take the daughter of all these different kings just in order to make them more loyal so that they felt like they had a blood relationship. I mean, kind of a thin relationship if they're one of 300 or one of 700. But again, you know, he would forge these alliances by basically, you know, marrying Pharaoh's daughter. Now there's an alliance there between that kingdom and this kingdom. You know, you read, leaders have done this throughout history, you know, I was reading about Genghis Khan, you know, that was something that he would do. He would marry all these different, you know, basically like a wife from each nationality and then he would produce children with them and then it seemed like, okay, wow, you know, he's accepting us into the Mongolian Empire. So this is just something that was done for political reasons. It was sin, it was wrong, I'm not condoning it, I'm just trying to explain to you a little bit of the reasoning behind it. And then obviously when we see the 700 wives, we can explain the 700 wives for political reasons in many cases. But then we see the 300 concubines. There's no justification for that because these 300 concubines are basically women that are not even being given the status of a wife because they were not of a royal lineage. They were not, you know, the daughters of great kings and great leaders. You know, these are basically just people that he is going to bed with that are not his wife. You know, it's just a carnal relationship when we see the word concubine. And by the way, whenever somebody has a girlfriend that they live with that's not their wife, I call it their concubine. I mean, that's what the Bible calls it. So I just say, oh, it's his concubine. You know, that's not a very popular word today because it's, you know why? Because it's degrading. Because the word concubine implies a status below that of a wife. You know, it's basically an unworthy type. Let me explain something to you girls. When you're living with a guy that you're not married to, you can call it whatever you want, but you are in a demeaning place where you are not being properly respected. You can call yourself whatever you want, girlfriend or, I mean, what else do they call it, right? When I was a kid they called it your common law, right? What else do you call it now? Your live-in? Yeah, exactly. Anyway, you know, your common law, your live-in, your concubine. But look, you are being degraded. And look, listen to me, ladies, and I'm speaking to girls and young girls and single girls. Look, if you are going to go to bed with a guy that you're not married to, you are being disrespected, degraded, and dishonored. Because if he respected you, if he honored you, okay, and if he were giving you proper respect, he would basically understand that you are worthy of the title of a wife before just being used carnally. You should be a wife. You know, you should have all of the privileges associated with being a wife and all of the honor and respect associated with being a wife, okay? And it is just the most disrespectful, degrading thing for you to move in with a guy that you're not married to and keep house with him and he won't even marry you. Why won't he marry you? Because he doesn't love you. If he loved you, he'll marry you. See, why not get married? Why not get married? Because you're not sure that you want to spend the rest of your life with that person, that's why. Because if you know for sure, I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you. And often people that are dating will say these type of things. Oh baby, I'm going to love you forever, you know, I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you, I'm never going to have eyes for anyone else, right? Okay, then why aren't you marrying her? Because you're a liar. Because if you really believed that, you'd marry her. Oh well, I'm just waiting, you know, talk is cheap, there's all kinds of excuses, and you know, it's just, it's a bad situation. And you know what, I pray to God that the young people in our church and the children in our church will be smart enough when they grow up to understand that they need to wait until marriage to be physical with one another, and to go to bed with one another, and not to commit the wicked sin of fornication. But the Bible here talks about these, you know, three-score queens and four-score concubines and virgins without number. My dove, my undefiled is but one. Basically what he's saying here is that, you know, there's all these queens, all these concubines, but he really only loves this one woman. I mean, he's really saying, you know, this is the one that I really care about. This is my beloved, my dove, my undefiled, the choice one, the best, you know, so the bottom line is, why even mess around with all the other ones? Just find the one that is that special someone that you want to give all your love to and spend all the rest of your life with, and that's all you need is just one wife. One person, okay? One husband, one wife. You don't need to go around and be with all these different people. But anyway, it says, my dove, my undefiled is but one, verse 9. She is the only one of her mother. She is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her and blessed her. Yea, the queens and the concubines and they praised her. Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners? Now, you know, don't call, if you're complimenting your wife, don't call her terrible, you know, because that's, you know, times change, alright? And when he says terrible there, he means basically, you know, fearful or intimidating, is what he's saying, you know, by that. When he talks about terrible as an army with banners, it comes from the word terror. Now, it's interesting because he says here, who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun. I talked about this a little bit at the wedding on Saturday, but it's interesting because God actually likens the husband and wife in the Bible to the sun and the moon. It's interesting because if you think about it, back in Genesis, you know, for example, when Joseph had a dream, he dreamed about the sun and moon and the 11 stars bowing down to him. The sun there represented his father, the moon represented his mother, and the stars represented the children. And then in Psalm 19, it talks about the sun, and in verse 5 it says, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. So in Psalm 19, the bridegroom, or the husband, is likened unto the sun. And what's interesting about that is that if you think about the sun and the moon, and if you turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 11, because I want to go into a little more detail about this, 1 Corinthians chapter number 11, because in Song of Solomon, he compliments his wife and compares her unto the moon, he says that she is as fair as the moon. But in Song of Solomon, he touched on this, but in 1 Corinthians 11, the Bible talks about the authority structure between the husband and his wife. In verse number 3 of 1 Corinthians 11, he says, but I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. So there's a chain of command there that goes God, Christ, then the husband, then the wife. So the Bible is real clear over and over again that the wife is to be subject unto the husband, that the wife is to submit herself unto her husband, and that the wife is to obey her husband. That's what's being taught here in 1 Corinthians 11-3 when it says that the husband is the head of the wife. But what's interesting is when you jump down to verse 7, it says, for a man indeed ought not to cover his head, for as much as he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of the man. For the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man. So the Bible tells us here that the woman was created for the man, because if you remember originally God created a man, and that man was paraded all of the animals before him, and God told him to name the animals, and Adam named all the animals, but then it says there was not found in help meat for Adam. And so God decided to make Adam undergo a deep sleep, and then remember he took from Adam's rib, and from the rib he formed a woman, and he brought the woman to the man and said this is going to be a help to you, a helper that is meat for you, and basically a companion for him, a friend for him, a spouse for him, a wife for him. And it says that her name was called Eve because she's the mother of all living, but what's interesting is that actually in Genesis 5, 2 it says male and female created him and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created. So it says that they were both called Adam, which is where we get the tradition of a wife taking her husband's name when they get married. Now I've talked to some people who just said, well, you know, she's just not going to take his name, you know, because they're being modern or trendy or feminist or whatever, and they say, well, I'm just not going to take my husband's name, but you know what, the Bible teaches that the wife should be called by her husband's name, because God called their name Adam. And what's interesting is that when God says here that the woman is the glory of the man, that ties in perfectly with 1 Corinthians 15 where God talks about that there is one glory of the sun in verse 41, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for one star differs from another in glory. Glory means brightness or shining. So he says, you know, the sun shines, the moon shines, the stars shine, and they all shine with different degrees of brightness, and the Bible says that the woman is the glory of the man. Okay, well think about the sun and the moon. Does the moon produce its own glory? Does the moon produce its own light source? All it does is reflect the light from the sun. The sun shines on the moon, and then the moon shines on the earth, and so the moon is a reflection of the sun's light. And so if God uses in the Bible the sun to picture the bridegroom, you know, the sun to picture the husband, and the moon to picture the wife, and then he says that the glory of the husband, I'm sorry, let me read it for you. It says in verse 7 of 1 Corinthians 11, the woman is the glory of the man. So she, her glory is of the man, okay? So I don't know if science, I don't know when did science discover that. You know, that the moon did not have its own light source, or that the moon was just a reflection of the sun. I mean, maybe in the Bible days they'd already, you know, done some of that with science and figured that out through astronomy, I don't know. But God definitely knew it, and you know, the Bible is always right on with science, I notice. I mean, it seems like all the time I'm constantly reading things in the Bible where basically they're always scientifically accurate. You know, you read other ancient literature and it's filled with scientific fallacies. You can even read things just from 200 or 300 years ago, and they're just filled with things that just scientifically don't make sense. But then in the Bible, everything just fits perfectly. You know, this illustration of the woman being the glory of the man is perfect when you think about how the moon gets its glory from the sun. And so a woman should not seek to have her own identity separate from her husband. They should be one flesh, their name should be called Adam, and that light, she should bask in the glory of her husband's light, and not try to get out from under his shadow, but rather bask in it, rather glory in it, rather glory in being a wife, not just being her own independent woman, you know, that's going to do whatever, you know. Rather to, you know, get on board with her husband, follow her husband, let him lead, let him be the boss, let him be the head, not let the tail wag the dog in that relationship. Or not let that relationship become a two-headed monster, you know, trying to go two different directions. Okay. And by the way, this is the number one problem in marriages today in my opinion. I mean, it is so rare that a husband is actually the boss of his home in America today. It's rare, you know, and it makes, look, it makes both husband and wife miserable. They're both miserable. Now look, as a man, you don't like being dissed by your wife, do you? You don't like it when your wife, you know, takes over and takes charge and bosses you, because you're a man, you want to be the boss in that relationship because you were born to be the boss in that relationship, because God created the husband to be the head of the home. But let me tell you something. Just as much, and listen to me, I'm telling you the Gospel truth tonight. Just as much as you as a man don't like being the boss, your wife is just as unhappy when you're not being a boss. It's true. I mean, your wife is just as unhappy as you are. So it's not just, oh, this is just, let's just give men what they want and then the women are just going to have to sit down and shut up and do it because we said so. No, because honestly, this is what women want. You can talk to worldly, unsaved women and once you cut through all the liberalism and feminism and left-wing propaganda, this is what all women want. They want a strong man to lead them. They don't want to be the boss. They don't want to be an Amazon woman. They want their knight in shining armor. They want their husband to lead and be the hero and to be a strong man and not to be a weakling. And when women, you know, will sometimes test their husband and then he just, ugh, you know, he just cowers like a weakling and then they just lose respect for him. Your wife will not respect you if you do not lead, if you are not the boss, if you do not take charge and take leadership. And you know what? Just start taking leadership in every area that you can. You decide where you're going out to dinner. You decide what we're going to eat. You know, you decide where you're going. And literally, the most common complaint that you hear from Christian women about their husband, he won't lead. I can't even submit because he won't even tell me what to do, seriously. Like he won't even tell me what to do. He won't even lead. He doesn't even make any decisions. I have to decide everything because he won't do it. But you know what? On the other side of that, a lot of times the reason why men aren't leading, why they're not giving clear commands, why they're not taking charge in their home is because they tried it once and it didn't go very well. You know what I mean? And so basically, you know, if you want your husband to lead, quit shooting him down every time he tries to lead. Now obviously, you know, as I speak to the men, you need to be man enough to just stand tall and get through that and be a boss anyhow. But look, why don't you make it easy for them, ladies, if you want to be married to a leader and quit fighting him every step of the way. And look, when women finally submit to their husbands, everybody's just a lot happier. Just do it. That's what the Bible says. Husband and wife will both be happier. But what's interesting about it is if you think about it, the Bible says that God created the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. But if you think about it, you can see the moon in the daytime, right? In fact, the moon is visible during daylight hours for just as long as it is during the night. You know, we think of the moon coming out at night, but the moon just comes out at all different times. There's no rhyme or reason as far as, you know, okay, let me explain it this way. 50% of the time it's visible in the day, 50% of the time it's visible in the night. I'll put it that way. But in the daytime it's not ruling because the sun is there overshadowing. Now listen, the moon's pretty bright. You know, at night the moon can really light things up. But when its brightness is put next to the sun's brightness, you know, it's not ruling. Okay, so if we apply that to marriage with the sun and moon analogy, basically when the husband's not around, the wife is a ruler. Like if I think about it in my home, when I go off to work, she has to rule over the children. So we're not teaching women to just, you know, just to be weak or not to be a leader. Because look, my wife has to be a leader because she has seven people to order around. I mean she has seven little people that need to obey her and listen to her, so she has to be a strong leader. Because if my wife were a weak leader, those children are going to walk all over her. They will try to walk all over her and there are seven of them. And they can all just gang up on her, you know? So she has to be and overpower her, you know? So she has to be a strong leader. She has to be a strong woman to rule over those seven kids. So I'm not telling my wife, you know, be weak. Be weak. Don't be a leader. Don't be strong. Don't be a ruler. No, no, no. I want my wife to be strong. I want her to be a leader. But here's the thing guys, I need to be stronger. Hey, I want the moon to shine as brightly as it can. But you know what? I'm going to shine a little bit brighter. And let me tell you something. When my wife is in my presence, then I'm the boss. I'm leading. I'm in charge. I call the shots. But look, as soon as I'm gone, my wife rules. Same thing with the moon. You know, when the sun's not around, the moon is the total boss. When the sun comes in, it's time for the moon to back off and let the sun take charge. You know, every once in a while the moon gets in front of the sun, right? What's that called? An eclipse, right? Okay. So every once in a while, you know, the moon gets in the sun's way and tries to stop him from ruling, you know, stop him from shining. I'm going to run the show. I'm going to be the boss, you know. Okay. Every once in a while the moon does that. It's called a solar eclipse, right? And boy, that's when the moon really shines its brightest, right? No, the result, look, the result is darkness, if you think about it. Okay, so when the moon says, oh, I'm going to take charge, okay, is there really any glory in that? Basically what happens is neither husband nor wife has the glory. You know, but see, when the sun is shining brightly and ruling by day and then, you know, when the sun goes away and then the moon's there shining brightly, receiving the glory from the sun, you know, then there's light by day and there's light by night, okay? But as soon as the moon tries to get in the way, you know, and it happens rarely. It ought to happen rarely, right? I mean, it's not like there's a solar eclipse like every week, right? So you know, it's a rarity. But when it happens, nobody's glorified by that. God is definitely not glorified. The husband's not glorified. His glory is being blocked and consequently the wife has no glory because it's an embarrassment to both. I mean, look, if you public, listen to me, if you're a wife and you publicly, you publicly rebuke your husband or you publicly mouth off to him and publicly start noodle necking him and telling him how it's going to be or publicly refuse to obey him, you know what, you're just making yourself and your husband look like an idiot. You're humiliating. You don't look cool. You're just humiliating both him and you, you know? And if he's a real man, he'll deal with you, you know, and straighten you out. But what I'm saying is, it's not beneficial to anybody. So if you think about this, it's really a great illustration with the sun and the moon. And you know, again, it's scientifically accurate with the Bible and it's just fascinating. It's helpful too for your marriage. But go back to Song of Solomon if you would. And then also if you think about the sun, you know, if a husband's supposed to be like the sun, he's supposed to be strong because the sun shines in its strength, you know? And the sun also pictures Jesus Christ. We as husbands are supposed to be like Christ as well. And we're supposed to picture Christ in the relationship. But it says in verse 11 of Song of Solomon chapter 6, I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley and to see whether the vine flourished and the pomegranates abutted. Wherever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amenadab. Return, return, O Shulamite, return, return, that we may look upon thee. That we see in the Shulamite as it were the company of two armies. And if you can figure out what those last two verses mean, then you know, you can explain it to me after the service. So let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you for all the things that we can learn about marriage and about our lives. Please just help us as we go through Song of Solomon not to be hearers of the word but to be doers of the word. And to take these concepts and put them into practice in our life. Help us not to just listen to the sermon but help us to think about, you know what, I could compliment my wife more, I could compliment my husband more, I'm going to really show her that I love her and I'm going to, you know, I think that my wife is the greatest woman in the whole world. I'm going to tell her that and I'm going to praise her and that wives would praise their husband and glorify him and tell him how great he is and express their love. I pray that marriages would be brought closer together through implementing the great truths that are found in Song of Solomon. I pray that every man here would be like the sun and that he would rule with great strength and warmth and be Christ-like as a leader. And I pray that every wife would be like the moon and reflect his glory and glorify her husband and be one that rules in his absence and that runs the house while he's gone at work. And please just help us to have a biblical marriage and a biblical lifestyle. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.