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“Welcome. Please study God’s Word with us.” I’m Carol Brooke. Share with us,
for a time, the Word as we bring our program called “From House to House.” We are in
a twelve part series. We hope you’ve been with us as we’ve progressed. If you haven’t,
we believe there’ll be something today if you stick with us. We’ve called this series
“He is: The Beautiful Bridegroom,” as He is portrayed and described in the book,
Song of Solomon in the Old Testament. You will find it’s like looking in a photo album
of the Heavenly Father, where He shows growth pictures and development of those that relate
to Him, whether it be on an individual basis or on the church at large. It is a symbolic
book that gives inspirational thoughts and principles of how to grow in the Lord. I’ve
been walking with Him a long time but I still haven’t attained. There’s more growth
ahead. Go to Song of Solomon 5:9-16, our basic text. If you have the opportunity to read
that, it would help you in understanding. For you who haven’t heard this series as
started before, we would like to say this is an experience the bride had in the Song
of Solomon, as she had experienced the withdrawing of her beloved. She goes out into the streets
to find him. She gets desperate and asks for help of people in her community. They want
a way to identify him. How can they help if they don’t know what he looks like? She
begins to describe various aspects of his appearance, not just the natural, but a symbolic
picture. Someone else may teach from the same text and they may bring a different focus.
It’s like the facets in a diamond, it has many sides. It doesn’t conflict or take
away. It adds understanding and enlightenment and as long as it’s scripturally based,
we can draw from it inspirational help. They ask her: “what is thy beloved?” And she
gives a description and says “my beloved IS.” We talked about his complexion, his
head, his eyes, and his hair. Today is lesson #5 and it’s “His Cheeks.” where she
answers this question: ‘what is your beloved?’ and begins to talk about his beautiful cheeks.
You say, “Carol, I’m uncomfortable with you using the word ‘beautiful’ describing
a man.” The scripture does refer to our Lord as being beautiful, and David being rough,
tough as a man as he was, a warrior, he said the one thing he desired and he was going
to seek after that with all his heart was in the temple of the Lord that he could see
the beauty of the Lord. The Lord is beautiful. Not only have all things been made beautifully,
but He is beautiful to know and to correspond with. So let’s consider “His Cheeks”.
In order to do that, look at verse 13. I’m going to use the Amplified. It says “His
cheeks are like a bed of spices or balsam, like banks of sweet herbs yielding fragrance.
His lips are like bloodred anemones or lilies distilling liquid [sweet scented] myrrh.”
If you notice her description, how sweet, how fragrant, how beautifully precious are
his cheeks, things they remind her of. Let’s look at the first part of that verse. She says, “His cheeks are like this bed
of spices or balsam, like banks of sweet herbs yielding fragrance”. I want to remind you
of some things about the cheeks of the Lord. Do you remember the occasion in the Word of
God, such as in Matthew 26:49, when Judas betrayed Him, the way that he identified who
the Lord was to those he sold Him to? He said: it’s the one that I will draw near and kiss.
The scripture says that he did kiss the Lord on those beautiful cheeks and that was his
sign to those he sold Him to. Turn to Luke 22:47-48 in the King James, “And while He
yet spake, behold a multitude, and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went
before them, and drew near unto Jesus to kiss him. But Jesus said unto him, Judas, betrayest
thou the Son of man with a kiss?” He betrayed the Son of God with a kiss on the cheek. The
Lord’s cheeks suffered a lot of abuse, not only this betrayal kiss of Judas, but those
cheeks were slapped, spit upon and the hair was plucked from His beard. We’re going
to consider some of these scriptures. We’re using a little more scripture than we typically
do. Would you turn to Matthew 26: 67, 68? It says, this is the King James, “Then did
they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote Him with the palms of their hands.
Saying, prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?” They were playing
a game, mocking Him by spitting in His face, slapping Him with the palms of their hands
and then they would back up and say: ‘Tell us, which one of us slapped you?’ I can’t
imagine what it would be like to endure such taunting when you are the creator of mankind
and to have those simpletons turn and think as though they were in a position of God and
all power and that you were nothing but a meek lamb. It would have been very hard to
be gracious in an hour like that. They slapped Him and spit upon Him. Turn to Isaiah 50:6,
in the King James, where it shows that the prophet prophesied that they would pluck the
hair off of His face. “I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked
off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting.” Some of you ladies know what
it feels like to use tweezers and pluck a hair here and there, pluck your eyebrows.
It’s not fun and comfortable is it? But can you imagine having the hair of your beard
pulled out hair by hair. Such torture, such gall, such nerve that mankind had to abuse
the cheeks of our beloved Lord. Little did they realize that someday they would have
to stand before Him as their Judge and look into the eyes of this One that they spit upon,
slapped, taunted and pulled the very hairs out of His face? No doubt, handfuls or hair
by hair, whichever would be the most painful you can be sure that’s what they did. So
that’s what His cheeks actually experienced. But what was our Lord’s reaction? I’m
sure it was a far cry from what our reaction would have been. We’re going to go quickly
to I Peter 2:22-23 in the New Testament. I’m going to read this particular text in the
Amplified, where it speaks of how He was reviled. Not only were those cheeks abused but He was
reviled. It says, “He was guilty of no sin, neither was deceit (guile) ever found on His
lips. When He was reviled and insulted, He did not revile or offer insult in return;
[when] He was abused and suffered, He made no threats [of vengeance]; but He trusted
[Himself and everything] to Him Who judges fairly.” This word ‘reviled’ means to
use abusive language. The very Creator of all mankind, who gave to man the ability to
speak and have a language – they turned that language on Him like a sword. And used
it, sharp as can be, with their tongue, and they reviled Him. But in spite of His abuse,
His rejection, coming as the redeemer of their souls, how did He react? We see that prophesied
in the Song of Solomon that we began with, 5:13 where it says “his cheeks were like
beds of spices or balsam, like banks of sweet smelling herbs yielding fragrance.” When
they slapped the cheek of our Lord, was there a stench that came forth that they smelled?
Oh no. No, when they slapped the Lord harshly, what they experienced was the sweet odors
coming out of those very cheeks that they had spit upon, as they watched the spittle
run down His cheeks and down into His beard and to His body. How vulgar.