The Believer Who Serves the Lord Alone

8Come with me from Lebanon, my bride, with me from Lebanon. Look from the top of Amana, from the top of Senir and Hermon, from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of the leopards. 9You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride. You have ravished my heart with one of your eyes, with one chain of your neck. 10How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine! The fragrance of your perfumes than all kinds of spices! 11Your lips, my bride, drip like the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon. 12A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain. 13Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates, with precious fruits: henna with spikenard plants, 14spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree; myrrh and aloes, with all the best spices, 15a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, flowing streams from Lebanon. 16Awake, north wind; and come, you south! Blow on my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and taste his precious fruits.

Look at our mothers’ generation: as girls they were loved and protected by their parents, and after marriage they lived beside a husband and bore children. Then, when the husband died or grew old, the life of those mothers was to live under a son’s protection. However remarkable a woman was, she could not get outside the fence of parents, husband and son. Of course now sons and daughters are raised alike and fairly, and husbands and wives treat each other as equals, so no one tells a son to take responsibility for her.

Women of the past married without even knowing their husband’s face and lived in a time when they could not go out as they pleased, so the characters of the husband and of his family decided a fate as different as heaven from earth. However remarkable and wise a woman was, once she was shut inside the fence of marriage she lived having given up her own name and her own dreams. If she met a husband’s family that did not respect her as a person and a husband who had not grown into a whole person, a woman had no choice but to walk a rough road of a life.

Many women had no strength to throw off the yoke laid on them, and they gave themselves up and gave their futures up. And the reality is that while they were treated in a way that ignored their own will entirely, according to the customs of the husband’s family, they could not claim any rights. When you see a mother-in-law who is a woman herself and yet cares only for her son and cannot take her daughter-in-law in, you can see why women have not moved forward. And when you see how sharp the conflict between mothers-in-law and sons-in-law has grown lately, it looks like something that also happens because women are not generous.

But once we grasp that our lives are a means of getting to God, we will know that a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law are precious souls who need to be saved, and we will treasure them. My own life matters, and so does the life of a daughter-in-law or a son-in-law. Treat them as persons so that their lives can shine and be happy, and my own son and daughter will be happy in turn, and the household will be at peace.

In marriage one family line meets another and one family meets another. But what matters more than that is the fact that one man and one woman meet and make a home. Forget that the two of them met in love before the meeting of family lines and families, and the two cannot help being unhappy. The most the parents on both sides can do is serve as a signpost so that the two can walk the right road.

What I truly want to ask of the parents, the brothers and sisters and the friends of those who are marrying is this: you must give the married couple time and wait until they become one, physically and spiritually. If parents draw on their experience to tell them right from wrong, showing them in detail where the world has dug its traps and where the hills and the fast rivers are, then the children they love will be able to carry the load of marriage more easily.

And a husband must wait until his wife grows used to the place of a wife, and a wife until her husband grows used to the place of a husband. A couple cannot live on love alone; only by going through a process of endless patience, adjustment and care for each other can they make a whole home. If wife and husband put their pride aside and respect and cherish each other, they can be happy together through the happiness the other feels. The two of them have now come outside their parents’ fence, and they must treasure the home they are to build together and work to keep it from falling to the little foxes. What is certain is that the couple comes before parents and before brothers and sisters. If parents raised their children straight, there is no need to worry about a child failing in duty; and only when a couple is happy will they serve their parents and their brothers and sisters with a greater love.

Solomon called the Shulammite “my sister.” A husband and wife can be happiest when they serve God as Father and live as brother and sister. Having spent their first night together, Solomon and the Shulammite are now one. The fence of love that the two have made as a couple has to be strong before the evil one and the evil spirits can be kept from working, so they must build the wall high with deep trust.

Just as the two became completely one flesh, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three persons and yet entirely one. God in three different persons is at work together from beginning to end with one aim and one purpose. Of course God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit each have a clear purpose in their work; but there is no higher and lower among them, and they respect each other’s freedom and will and guarantee each other’s ministry.

God governs all history, and according to the covenant he helped Jesus to pay for sin and rise from death. Christ offered himself to God as the atoning sacrifice and saved all sinners, and he worked so that believers would give God glory through faith.

John 14:26

26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you.

God the Holy Spirit is the Spirit who makes us understand. After the Holy Spirit came, the disciples and their faith were completely changed. Gone was the way they had always doubted and been pressed down by the world’s power. Once the Holy Spirit made them understand what the word of truth was that they had learned from Jesus for three years, the disciples began to live according to that word. Once they believed that God is alive and saves, and that there is a heaven to go to on the last day, the disciples preached the gospel at the risk of their lives.

The way the triune God works together in cooperation is a very important example for husbands and wives. A couple becomes a couple in the proper sense only when they guarantee each other’s individuality and freedom and have a love that works together and builds the other up for the peace of the home. Children born to two people who live comforting each other and know how to sacrifice themselves will also take the couple’s love as their pattern and will grow up with good characters.

The time had now come for the Shulammite to leave her family home and follow her husband. She stood with Solomon on the top of Mount Hermon and looked down at the home she had lived in. A woman thinks a great many thoughts when she leaves her family home. As she walks out behind her husband, leaving behind all the time and the memories and the people she was attached to, her heart holds an emptiness like a hole punched through it, together with fear of the new life and expectation of it. Of course there are women like the Shulammite who marry because they want to leave home quickly, and there are women who weep because they do not want to leave. If a husband does not take a complicated heart like this in his love, a heart that can be told to no one, that pain will turn into an illness.

Leaving behind the brothers who had mistreated her and the hard work of the vineyard, she followed Solomon to Jerusalem; and however hard the life in her family home had been, her heart would have ached. The Shulammite left Shunem, the land of the tribe of Issachar and her home, crossed range after range of rough mountains where lions and leopards live, and went to Jerusalem in the land of the tribe of Judah. Now a life began for her in which she knew and relied on Solomon alone.

Song of Solomon 4:10

10How beautiful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much better is your love than wine! The fragrance of your perfumes than all kinds of spices!

Setting out on the road with the Shulammite must have thrilled and delighted Solomon, because he repeats the confession he made when he first met her. He confessed that the love she gives is better than wine, and that the fragrance of her oils is sweeter than all spices.

The Spirit-filled fragrance given off by believers who set out on the road of faith with Jesus Christ is more beautiful than any fragrance in the world. And the precious blood Jesus shed, carrying the sins of sinners in their place, is a love better than wine. Just as God takes into his arms the believers who come in the name of Jesus Christ alone, the Spirit-filled fragrance believers give off becomes a great joy that God takes in. However much wealth and power and time a person offers in order to gain God’s love, devotion without Christ cannot be a joy to God, because what God loves is a believer who offers all of it in the fullness of the Spirit.

1 John 2:27

27As for you, the anointing which you received from him remains in you, and you don’t need for anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, you will remain in him.

Believers who have received the Holy Spirit are taught by no one. The Holy Spirit alone teaches believers; and because the Spirit is true and holds no lie, believers who have been taught have only to do as the Spirit has shown them.

Solomon praised the Shulammite, saying that her lips drop honey, that honey and milk are under her tongue, and that the fragrance of her garments is as beautiful as the fragrance of Lebanon. This must be the highest praise a husband can give his wife. Through her Solomon is feeling now a happiness that could only be enjoyed in heaven.

Song of Solomon 4:11

11Your lips, my bride, drip like the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under your tongue. The smell of your garments is like the smell of Lebanon.

How sweet and how beautiful must the Shulammite’s speech have been to earn praise like this from Solomon? She would have wanted her words to make him happier, and she would have lifted him up with words that were considerate and that covered him. A husband and wife have to speak to each other in a spirit of respect if they are not to wound each other. A word once out of the mouth cannot be gathered back in, so you must never say anything that runs the other person down or shows contempt.

Just as her lips are said to drop honey, the word that comes out through the lips of believers is truth that saves souls. That word is sweet as the honeycomb, and everyone who hears it will receive Christ and gain eternal life. The one who has us preach that word is the Holy Spirit, and the one who helps people hear it as sweet as honeycomb is the Holy Spirit too. What makes it possible to live as a holy believer in a rough world is that the Holy Spirit, dwelling inside the heart, has shown us God’s will and his providence, and that is how we can live holding a strong faith. And because he has taught us the suffering, the atonement and the resurrection of Christ truly and without a lie, we can hold a sound faith.

A believer who walks with the Holy Spirit lives giving off a fragrance as beautiful as the fragrance of Lebanon, wherever they are. Whether a believer is with brothers and sisters who have been saved or with people of the world, they cannot help showing that fragrance everywhere they go. To those who delight in the beautiful fragrance of Christ it will be the fragrance of life, and to those who dislike it, the fragrance of judgment. The salvation of the people of the world hangs on the fragrance of believers, so believers must always give off the same fragrance. If a believer changes the fragrance to suit their own needs as they live in the world, the Holy Spirit cannot be with that person, so they will soon lose the fragrance of Christ. God blesses a faith that gives everything, to the end of life, in faith.

Song of Solomon 4:12

12A locked up garden is my sister, my bride; a locked up spring, a sealed fountain.

Locked, covered and sealed means a cutting off that nothing can enter. Solomon is singing that the Shulammite is a pure woman who has been mixed with nothing but himself. She looks at him alone, holds only that love in her heart, and has sealed the true love welling up inside her so that no one can draw it off; and seeing this, Solomon was overjoyed.

The world is in disorder now and homes are being destroyed because husbands and wives have not locked and covered and sealed. That love ought to be locked and covered and sealed so that no one can walk in carelessly and no one can draw it off; instead people walk in far too easily and destroy the home. Whether it is the world, or a person, or a faith, because there has been no sealing, truth and faith are watered down, compromises have to be made with them, faith is shaken, homes are polluted and families distrust each other.

The love believers have for God should be like the Shulammite’s. In a locked garden of faith that no power or authority of the world and no evil spirit can enter, they should open the lid of the well of thanks for the Lord alone and refresh him, and should hold a spring of love welling up that the Lord gives. How could God not love and protect a believer with a faith as precious as this? The Shulammite was a beautiful woman — wise, understanding, good and upright in equal measure. Believers should be the same.

Song of Solomon 4:16

16Awake, north wind; and come, you south! Blow on my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and taste his precious fruits.

The water running down from holy Mount Hermon flows into the Jordan, and that clean water flowed into the garden of the home Solomon and the Shulammite had made and brought out all kinds of beautiful flowers and fruit. As she wanted Solomon alone to eat the fruit grown with the water of Mount Hermon, believers devote themselves to offering God the fruit of many souls grown with the holy water of life that is Christ. When even one soul is born again as a citizen of the kingdom of God, the joy of believers is beyond telling.

They say fruit ripened where the north wind and the south wind meet tastes best. As fruit grown where cold wind meets warm wind is full and delicious, the faith believers produce between the suffering they meet in the world and the peace of faith will be enough to show the glory of Christ.

Like the Shulammite, who gives her best for Solomon alone, you must wrestle with the question of what to do for Christ. Christ has already become a strong fence around you; if you cannot offer him songs of thanks to the full, and cannot lower yourself, the evil one and the evil spirits will laugh and mock.

I hope you too will become believers whose lips drop honey, with honey and milk under the tongue, as the Shulammite had. Then, as Solomon lifted up the Shulammite’s beauty, God will lift you up and make you glorious. May many souls hear the honey-sweet word you preach and be saved, and may you receive a great reward from God.

The Shulammite made herself ready for Solomon alone. May you live for Christ alone. I bless you in the name of Jesus Christ.