Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
The following program is a production
of Truth For The World.
♪ Day by day and with each passing moment, strength I find
to meet my trials here.
Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment, I've no cause
for worry or for fear.
♪ Hello and welcome to the program Words To Live By.
In this series of programs,
we are examining the home and the family.
And while this topic is very broad and too vast for us
to be able to cover every scenario or potential idea
for discussion, we do hope to give you God's instructions
for the home and family and thus give you Words To Live By.
You can then take these words and use them as your rules
and guidelines to follow when making decisions
about your own situations regarding the home and family.
In a previous program, we have begun to look at God's plan
for the home and the family.
In fact, several of the early programs we're beginning
in this series will look at how God planned
for the home and the family to be.
We have seen that marriage was there
from the beginning times of Creation.
Adam and Eve were the first man and woman,
and as Adam proclaimed in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 24,
"Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother,
and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh."
We also saw that marriage took a commitment to be together
until death do the husband and wife part.
Marriage also must be entered into by mature people.
Marriage also takes a cleaving.
The husband and the wife are to cleave, to commit
and to submit to each other.
They are to hold on to one another
until death separates them.
We also looked at the marriage vows in a previous program.
It was pointed out that how we follow through on our vows
of marriage gives others an indication of our truthfulness.
We need to be truthful to other people
and they will realize pretty quickly when we are lying
or do not fulfill what we say we will do.
The marriage vows are not to be treated differently.
We need to be truthful to them
like we should be with other things.
This includes the vow to be together as husband and wife,
again, until death do you part.
It was also pointed out that the home would suffer
if the marriage vows were not upheld.
Broken homes would result, and lessons would be taught
to children and grandchildren that God's laws
and His word do not need to be listened to or upheld.
This would result in children
and families doing what was right in their own eyes.
Society would then be impacted, as well.
When everyone does what is right in their own eyes,
there is no law and order, but rather selfishness and chaos.
The very fabric of ordered society would be ripped and torn
as God's plans are continually being ignored in place
of man's laws and ideas.
Well, we're continuing our study of the home and family,
and in this program we are continuing to look at marriage.
In particular, we look at marriage and the book
of the Bible known as the Song of Solomon.
In this book, we see Solomon and his wife and we can learn
about the passion and purity of marriage.
Passion is something that is appropriate in its place.
The romantic passions between a man
and a woman have their place in marriage.
There apparently was passion here for Solomon from his wife.
Notice what she says in the Song of Solomon chapter 8,
starting in verse 6, "Set me as a seal upon thine heart,
as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death,
jealousy" (or true, married love) "is cruel as the grave,
the coals thereof are coals of fire,
which hath a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
neither can the floods drown it."
There is passion and love in a relationship
and the proper place for it to fulfill itself is in marriage.
So join us now as we begin this study of marriage and the Song
of Solomon, specifically looking at the purity and the passion
that can be involved in marriage.
Curtis Cates is going to lead us through this study,
so we invite you now to open your Bibles.
Join with us as we continue this study of the home and family,
looking at marriage and the Song of Solomon.
This morning I want us to think
for a few minutes concerning the Song of Solomon,
and so if you will, turn there.
When we think of the Song of Solomon,
we think of the greatest work
on marriage that's ever been written.
The Bible says in Song of Solomon 1:1,
"The song of songs, which is Solomon's."
When I think about the song of Songs, I am reminded
of the phrase "King of kings and Lord of lords,"
which means the King above all other kings and the Lord
above all other lords.
This is the song above all other songs concerning the subject
which it discusses.
And so, there's a lot of wisdom in this book, and we will try
to get a little of it out at this particular time.
Of course, I think there's an analogy between the Song
of Solomon and the relationship between Solomon and a young lady
who is in the northern part of his kingdom, from the area
of Shulam, but there's an analogy between these two
and Christ and the church.
Now, we're married to Christ, as you well know.
In Isaiah 62:5, the Bible,
through Isaiah (the great Messianic prophet), said,
"And the land shall be married."
Well, he's talking about the New Testament age.
He's talking about the time when there would be a new name given
to God's people (Isaiah 62:2).
So, in verse 5, he says, "And the land shall be married."
The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's,
was written by Solomon.
He was king of Israel,
and of course he reigned for forty years.
He was a great king in so many ways and especially early,
when he was going by
and following the wisdom of Jehovah God.
God blessed him so richly.
I think this was written early
in the time of his reign as king.
We're not going to notice the analogy this morning
between Christ and the church, with Christ and the church.
That can come another time.
But we do want to notice what, I believe, the Song of Songs tells
about the relationship of Solomon and this young lady.
In Chapter 1 verse 1, through Chapter 3 and verse 5,
we find that they are courting one another.
They are wooing one another.
And, of course, she's playing hard to get,
and Solomon keeps chasing her until she catches him.
And that often happens.
And that's what happens in Chapter 1 verse 1
through Chapter 3 and verse 5.
In Chapter 3 verse 6, through Chapter 5 and verse 1,
we have the marriage, the honeymoon, so forth.
He brings her down from the area of Sharon, where she's from,
around the cedars of Lebanon, up in that area.
And she is brought down, and of course, they marry,
and they spend their honeymoon together.
In Chapter 5 verse 2, through Chapter 8 and verse 14,
we have the third major division.
In Chapter 5 verse 2, we find the marriage gets
into difficulty.
And so when the marriage gets into difficulty,
I think it is wise for us to look
to see how the wise man Solomon handled this matter.
Did he get really angry and boisterous and, like the big,
bad wolf, when she wouldn't let him into the bedroom,
did he kick the door in?
Or did he go on and-you know, just how did he handle that?
And then we see the marriage continuing to grow
and to blossom and to mature.
And, of course, this was before the time
when Solomon lost his mind spiritually and went
after other women, and - all total - he had a thousand women.
And I think, later on, at least I hope that he repented of that,
as seems to be indicated in Ecclesiastes, where he says
in Ecclesiastes 12:13, after he has performed what we might call
a scientific experiment, he says,
"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.
Fear God and keep His commandments,
for this is the whole of man."
And so, sometimes people are foolish enough to have
to learn the hard way that sin does not benefit us.
Sin only destroys.
Sin cannot bring true happiness.
And, when we leave home, when we leave God,
when we go out into the world, the "dog eat dog" world,
then the "dog eat dog" world will treat us
like a dog, like dogs.
And so that's what happened to Solomon,
that's what happened to the prodigal son.
And it's interesting when the famine arose and he was starving
to death, "no man gave unto him."
And so he remembered home, and he said,
"Hey, I had it good there.
I will go back and simply be a servant of my father."
And so he headed back.
Sometimes people have
to hit rock bottom before they realize what they left
and what they have failed to gain in the
"dog eat dog," Satan-ruled world.
And so, I think this was early in the career of Solomon.
Now, why do I think that?
Well, I think it because of Chapter 3,
beginning with verse 6, when the processional is taking place,
he is bringing his wife down from Lebanon,
and he has 60 excellent soldiers (palace guard) guarding the way
as he brings her down in the car of state.
And it's all dressed up.
It has the embroidery and beautiful fabrics
and this type thing in this carriage
in which he brings his wife, new bride,
from her home to the palace.
And we find that he was wearing a new crown, a crown,
which his mother made for him, a special crown for the day
of his espousals, in the day of the gladness of his heart.
And so this indicates to me, brethren and friends,
that this was early in the career of Solomon.
Now, there are a number of things which we can learn
from the Song of Solomon.
First of all, there are three major parties
in the Song of Solomon.
Number one, there is Solomon, who is king of Israel.
Number two, there is this young lady, and notice what the chorus
of women say here in Chapter 6 and verse 13:
"Return, return, O Shulamite."
So she's from the area of Shulam.
"Return, return, that we may look upon thee."
We do not know her name,
but we know that she must have been a beautiful young lady whom
Solomon had noticed in the northern part of his kingdom
when he was up there watching over that part of the kingdom.
And perhaps he had flocks and herds up there,
and so he noticed this young lady, and he began wooing her
and she him, I take it.
Now, let's notice some things that the Song
of Solomon can tell us.
Brother Keith may very much enlarge
on these basic principles.
But, number one, notice in Chapter 8 and verse 8,
when she is thinking back,
she has built a wonderful environment
in which love can develop and grow.
You know, some ladies do that, and perhaps men, too,
but especially young ladies do that when they are trying
to woo a young man before marriage, you know.
And they want to put their best foot forward,
and they want this blossoming love to grow and develop.
And so they really go all out.
But after they marry, oftentimes, they go to pot.
In other words, they forget, "Hey, you know,
I need to continue to look good.
I need to continue to put emphasis upon how I look
and how I act, and I need to continue
to build this environment in which love can grow."
And so, when that happens, the marriage is going
to fall upon difficult time.
Well, evidently she continued to build an environment
in which marriage could grow,
and I think that's a great lesson to us.
But here in remembering back, she is reminiscing here
in Chapter 8 (we'll talk more about that a little bit later).
But, along about this time, true, married love is talking.
It's called "jealousy" here, but in the Hebrew,
it's not jealousy, "the green-eyed monster,"
but it is true, married love.
Notice Chapter 8 and verse 6:
"Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm,
for love" (that's true, married love) "is as strong as Sheol.
Jealousy" (or true, married love) "is as cruel" (hard)
"as Sheol (the margin American Standard says)."
We'll talk about that in a minute.
"The flashes thereof are flashes of fire,
a very flame of Jehovah."
(I'm reading from the American Standard of 1901.)
"A very hot flame," the King James says,
"but the flashes thereof are flashes of fire
that are kindled by Jehovah God."
In the garden, God created Adam.
He passed all the animals by Adam.
Each one of those animals had a mate, and it was observed, "Hey,
you know, Adam doesn't have a mate."
There was not a help suitable found for him.
And so, the animals had mates, but Adam, a human being made
in the image of God, just a little lower
than the angels, did not have a mate.
And so God anesthetized him (first anesthesiologist).
He was the first surgeon.
He cut the flesh of his side open, took a rib from his side,
closed up the flesh instead thereof.
And from that rib, he made woman (bone of his bone
and flesh of his flesh).
And then the Bible says, Genesis 2:24:
"For this cause shall a man leave father and mother
and cleave unto his wife, and they, too, shall be one flesh."
There are three major institutions in this world,
and the oldest one is marriage.
And God instituted marriage.
God is the one who founded the home.
And how many times have you heard
that in marriage ceremonies, and it's true!
God came with the home.
He knew what it would take to make man and woman truly happy,
the happiest that they could possibly be.
You know, our country is rapidly destroying itself.
One way that it's destroying itself is it's trying
to chase God out of the universe.
And it's already chased God out of the public schools.
God has been chased out of the media.
God has been chased out of records and the movies
that are made in Hollywood.
Hollywood probably seems to be at least 90% rank liberal
and most of it anti-God.
And so, what's going to happen?
And the home is being ridiculed.
Over half of the people in this country are not married.
Many of them are (and they don't have to be married) .
. .but many of them - a high percentage -
are "shacking up" with one another.
And how high is the divorce rate today?
And the situation is bad because we've chased God
out of our society.
In Memphis, they used to put the births
in the Memphis Commercial Appeal .
You don't see that anymore, because they used
to put the mother and father, the parents.
Well, they stopped doing that because well over half (then)
of the children who were born didn't have a father listed.
And now, the percentage must be way higher than that.
So it became so embarrassing that they stopped listing it.
When we run God out of the universe,
we're going to destroy our home.
But, it's interesting that God's not going
to be run out of the universe.
Daniel 2:28 says that there IS a God in heaven.
You know, some have said that he is like this Cheshire cat
in Alice in Wonderland .
He is departing; he's fading out of existence.
This Cheshire cat, the last thing
that Alice could see was his nose
as he faded out of existence.
You're not going to see God fading
out of existence of the universe.
Now, he may be run out of our society,
and he's being rapidly run out of our society.
And good people are going to have to stand up and talk up
and defend the fact that there is a God if we're going
to save our civilization.
I'll tell you that.
And the home is the basis of our civilization.
Also, the home is the oldest, and then the government,
and then also the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
So we have to realize that, when we think
about the home, it was begun by God.
And, being instituted by Jehovah God, he is the only one
that has the right to control it.
And so we need to go to the guidebook.
I've had people .
. . I'm not a counselor nor the son of a counselor,
but being a gospel preacher, sometimes people have come to me
and said, "Hey, brother Cates, we have this problem.
. .we've had this problem.
. .this is a real problem to us.
. . our marriage is getting in great difficulty."
And, you know, they wait too long.
Years ago, when we had a little lad born to us,
well the first year, he was in existence, Andy,
he had to have a train.
He had to have a train.
Yes, sir. And I had to make sure
that that train was working properly
and everything was together before Christmas,
so that he could enjoy that train.
And I didn't know much about putting trains together
and putting track together and all this.
And I have an idea as I was trying to get this together
and get it ready for ol' Andy, Annette might have said to me,
"Aren't you going to read the instructions?
Aren't you going to look at how to put that together?"
Why she questioned my manhood, thinking that I didn't know how
to put a train together.
What'd she think?
And sometimes she does the same thing when we're
on a trip, lost as all get-out.
"Well, don't you think you need to ask somebody?"
Can you imagine that?
And so sometimes that's the way we are, you know, in our home.
Young people, before they marry, they don't think
about reading the instruction.
God instituted marriage.
He came with the instructions.
He wants marriages to stay together,
fulfill their responsibility, have children that don't have
to worry from one day to the next what in the world's going
to happen to their home and whether they're going
to have their parents the next day.
What a cruel thing to happen, but you know sometimes we think
about putting our homes together in and of ourselves.
We don't need to read the instructions.
And so then they come to brother Mosher,
they come to me and others.
And I'm not a counselor, so I send them to brother Mosher
or to my brother or other people.
But, anyway, or to the elders.
You know, the elders - older ones are
to teach the younger ones to love their wives or husbands
and love their children.
You know, that's mighty good instruction right there.
But sometimes they wait too late.
Why did you wait too long?
The horse is already out of the pasture.
The cows have already escaped, as it were.
Why didn't we work on the fence beforehand?
And so, we need to look early
at the instructions for our marriages.
Curtis Cates has pointed out the passion and fire
of true, married love.
It is a shame that so many mistake the physical passions
and short-lived feelings for the true, married love
that can be shared between a husband and wife
in the marriage relationship.
Notice again what is written in Song of Solomon chapter 8
and verse 7 regarding love.
"Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.
True love is both a fire that the waters cannot put out
and also a thing
that overwhelming waters cannot kill it."
The true love shared by a husband and wife
who put each other first, commit to their marriage
and share a passion cannot be extinguished by the waters
or problems encountered in this world.
The best that the world can throw at the institution
of marriage can never overcome two people who are willing
to sacrifice in order to preserve their love.
What God has instituted
as marriage should not be put asunder by man
but also cannot be broken apart by man when the husband
and wife will not allow it.
And in that sense, the true love shared is one that overcomes
and continues into eternity forever.
The true, married love shared by a husband and wife is
so much deeper and permanent than the brief physical passion
or crush that one may have for someone else.
This again shows us the seriousness of marriage
for those contemplating entering it,
and those who are already there.
The love that is required for marriage is deep and lasting.
On our next program, we will continue to look at marriage
and the Song of Solomon, focusing on the purity
to be kept before marriage, as we continue this series
on the home and the family.
But once again even though we are looking at the physical home
and family during the course of these programs,
we must not forget to mention the spiritual family.
The most important family
of which you can be a member is the spiritual family of God.
When we rebel against God's laws and do things our ways,
we sin and the punishment for that sin is death,
or separation from God.
Notice Romans chapter 6 and verse 23.
There it tells us, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift
of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
It is because of Jesus Christ
that we can have eternal life instead
of the death that we deserve.
Jesus, who is God, came down to earth and lived a sinless life.
He then gave Himself as a perfect sacrifice of death
to pay the penalty of sins for all mankind.
If we accept that sacrifice on our behalf
and have our sins washed away, we can return to God's presence
after this life is over.
In fact, we can become one of God's children.
Notice Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 5.
There we read that God
"has predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself."
It was because of Jesus that the adoption into the family
of God is possible for us.
Now in order to accept the sacrifice on our behalf
and wash away our sins, we need
to follow God's plan of salvation.
First, we must believe that Jesus is the Son of God
and that He died for our salvation
as a perfect sacrifice for sins.
Next, we need to repent of our sins.
In other words, stop rebelling against God
and be willing to follow His ways.
Turn from our old life and follow Christ.
Then, we need to confess our belief in Christ before others.
State that you believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
And next, be immersed in water, baptized,
in order that you might wash away your sins.
And just as Jesus died, was buried, and rose again,
so you too die to your old way of sin, be buried under water,
and rise to walk a new creature, a product of the new birth.
Finally, live faithfully following Christ
and His commandments.
Have you done these things yet?
If not, why not take care of these things today and be added
to God's church, God's household, God's family?
Be sure to join us next time as we continue to study the home
and family on Words To Live By.