Do Not Disturb
Do Not Disturb
(Song of Solomon 2:7; 3:5; 8:4; Genesis 21:31; 24:37)
By Dr. Tim Little
Dr. Tim Little with us this morning, teaching from the Song of Solomon. It's been very enjoyable for me, like I probably mentioned before, but I'll say it again, it was a book that I always kind of read over really quick because it didn't make a lot of sense to me.
And if you haven't gotten Dr. Little's book, you should do that because that helps a lot, and the teaching has helped a lot for me to understand what God's teaching us and what God's saying to us. So I appreciate the ministry, and we're excited to have you back again.
It is nice to be with you again. It's nice to be able to open up God's word with you again. And if you could go ahead and turn in your bibles to the song of songs, as far as the order of your books in the Bible, you got proverbs, Ecclesiastes, song of songs.
Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, song of songs. If you hit Isaiah, you went too far. And we're going to get into this text, and I pray that it's a blessing for you.
This is not a book of the Bible. That's what something that I've discovered at a young age either. It's one of those books of the Bible that we tend to do exactly what Sean was talking about.
We kind of read through it and we're like, well, something's going on there, and it seems a little bit weird and different from the rest of the Bible. And then we keep on going. It's great to sing about these eternal truths, about Jesus and how he is our savior.
He paid our price. We deserve to be punished for our sins. We deserve, deserve the wrath of God.
But instead of receiving the wrath of God, we get his grace. And it is wonderful to sing about those truths. And as we think through our bibles, we have a lot of the Bible that talks about those truths, those redemptive truths, living at peace with God.
But there's this other aspect of the Bible that talks about living in this world, living with real people, real people who sometimes sin against you. And the song of songs, it addresses some of those issues. As far as being reconciled to God, we have the book of Romans.
We have a lot of biblical literature that talks about that. What about being reconciled to your spouse? What about being reconciled to your wife or to your husband? The song of songs, in Proverbs and Ecclesiastes deals with the life in this world. And so there's a great value to studying through some of these little books in the Bible, these wisdom books in the Bible as well.
And I look forward to sharing, particularly from one verse. So you're there in song of Solomon. Song of Solomon, also called the song of songs.
If you can just follow in your copy of God's word. I'm just going to read through chapter two, verses one through seven. So chapter two, verses one through seven, and you can just follow along in your copy of God's word, whatever the translation is, that'll be fine.
We're going to focus in on one verse specifically this morning. So chapter two, verse one. I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys, as a lily among brambles, so is my love among the young woman.
As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my beloved among the young men. With great delight I sat in his shadow, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.
Sustain me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am sick with love. His left hand is under my head and his right hand embraces me. I adjure you, o daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the doze of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.
Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for this time that we can get into your word. We can study this text from the Song of Solomon.
I pray that you would speak to us through your word. Your word is truth. You have given us truth in this text, in the Song of Songs.
And as we study it this morning, I pray that we might delight in it. Help us to look at our lives and to see how this verse, how these principles connect to our lives. Lord, in an audience like this, I'm sure some have erred.
They have sinned in the past concerning this area, this area of love and sexuality. I pray that they would seek forgiveness, and then that they would be forgiven and recognize that. That forgiveness is theirs.
And then, lord, I pray that they would walk in the truth. Walk in the truth of what your word teaches concerning love and sexuality. In Jesus name, amen.
Okay, so this verse that we're going to focus on today is song of songs, chapter two and verse seven. And I'm just going to read it again. I adjure you, o daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the doze of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.
We're going to talk about what that verse means. I would contend that it is the foundational principle to loving successfully particularly for young people. And this verse, it's at the end of this section.
Okay. All of this is leading up to just this verse. And so it's a very important verse structurally in the text.
But before we really get into it, I want to read another verse. I want you to now turn in your bibles and look at song of songs again. Song of Solomon, chapter three and verse five.
So go ahead and turn in your bibles there to song of songs, chapter three and verse five. Okay, so song of songs, chapter three, verse five. And I'm going to go ahead and read it.
I adjure you, o daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the doze of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Does that sound familiar? What's different between song 35 and song two seven? Nothing. Okay.
There's nothing different. It's the same exact thing. So this verse is repeated in song two seven.
It's repeated in song 35. Now I want you to go in your bibles again and turn to song, chapter eight. Song of songs, chapter eight.
Hopefully, it's just two or three pages over. Song of songs, chapter eight. And then look at verse four.
Song of songs, chapter eight, and verse four. I adjure you, o daughters of Jerusalem, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Here it is again, this same verse, but it's a little bit different this time.
Okay. So conceding that it's a little bit different. So let's go back to song of songs, chapter two.
We're going to just focus in two seven. But really, you could grab any of these texts because this is what we're going to talk about today, is song of songs, chapter 2735 and eight four. How do I advance this thing? It's just the arrow on this arrow here on this side.
Oh, it might be off. It's off. Okay, I got it now.
There we go. Found the on off button. There we go.
All right, so here it is. I've got it up on the screen for you. I adjure you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the doze of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.
So what is this verse talking about now, when we think through a song, which, by the way, the song of songs is a song. Thank you. It is a song.
We just sang some songs. And did you notice how when we sing a song, there's often this section of a song that's repeated again and again and again? We call that section of the song a chorus or a refrain? Well, this section right here, this song of songs 2735 and eight four is a refrain, and it's been called the adjuration refrain. Why? Well, it says, I adjure you.
Now, the adjure is the ESV's translation. Some of your translations may take it a little bit differently. That's fine.
I'm going to call it the adjuration refrain, just because it occurs three times and somebody is being adjured, whatever that means. Right. What does it mean to adjure? I adjure you.
Great. What does that mean? We'll talk about that in just a moment. But this adjuration refrain, what does it mean? I'm going to refer to it as an adjuration refrain.
So I adjure you, o daughters of Jerusalem. What does it mean to adjure? Let's just start there. What does it mean to adjure? Well, this word adjure, it occurs a few times in the Bible, and it states in Genesis 21 31, therefore, he called that place Beersheba, because the two of them swore an oath there.
It's to swear an oath. That's the word that's here in song 2735 and eight four in Genesis 24 37. Now, my master made me swear.
Do you see that terminology? It's to, like, tell somebody else to take an oath. That's the idea of adjure in Song 2:7, 3:5 and 8:4. I have here at the bottom, it's an urge or request someone solemnly or earnestly to do something. And that's what's going on here in song 2:7, 3:5 and 8:4, I adjure you, o daughters of Jerusalem.
Now, there's some weird stuff up on the screen. I'll talk about that in a little bit. But I adjure you means I make you swear.
It's like, I want you to swear to do something. Now then, who's supposed to take the oath? I adjure you. And then what does it say? Oh, daughters of Jerusalem.
And if you remember, I was here about a month ago. I know we forget. It's okay.
But the daughters of Jerusalem would be our daughters. It would be our unmarried young ladies, and that they are the primary audience of this adjuration. I adjure you, o daughters of Jerusalem.
Now, I've got some young men here, and plus, as a know, we have young men that are our children. Well, does this apply to them? Well, the you pronoun there is actually masculine in Hebrew. So when it says I adjure you, that's guys and girls.
But the primary reference is to the daughters of Jerusalem. It's to our single, unmarried young ladies. Do you see how this has become really formative for me and that, you know what? Our college students need to know this.
Our high school students need to know this. There's components of this concerning awakening love that apply not just to our teenagers, but even to those who are younger than our teenagers. This is something that needs to be taught in our churches, because love is everywhere in our world, okay? Our children are being bombarded with it from everywhere.
I was sitting on the couch watching a movie with my daughter, and it was some Disney movie. I don't even remember what it was. And this was a long time ago, so probably, like, four years ago, she was a lot younger.
And I could see how this movie was teaching my daughter a theology of love right there on the couch in my home. And that theology of love that was being taught to my daughter was wrong because it was different from what this was teaching. And so I'm like, we need to teach this.
We need to talk about this. Might it be a little bit awkward? Yeah. Oh, well, let's talk about it, and let's see what God's word has to say about this thing called awakening love.
All right, so I adjure you, o daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles or the doze of the field. Now, let's see here. Okay.
What's up with the gazelles or the dose of the field? That's kind of weird. So if you're going to take an oath, you're like, I swear to do this. And then usually what you would expect is buy my tootsie roll stash or whatever, and you're covenanting to do whatever it is, and if you don't do it, then you lose your tootsie rolls or whatever.
Okay, fill in the blank. You like tootsie rolls. So what you would expect, though, within that phrase, by the gazelles of the dozen of the field, would be some kind of deity, like by the lord of hosts, by God almighty, or something like that would be expected.
What's up with the deer? I mean, if you want to break the oath, couldn't you just go grab the shotgun and shoot Bambi? He's just like, I'm free. Don't have to do that anymore. Well, the gazelles and the doze of the field are probably an allusion to God himself.
And in English, we can't see this too well, so I'm going to just put some weird characters up there on the screen, but you can see the similarity. So the two words that are on the left. The characters, you don't know what they are.
They're Hebrew. Okay, but you can play that matching game match. They look the same, right? They look extremely similar.
And then the words on the other side of the screen said, the doze of the field. They look a lot like El Shaddai. In fact, the sound between these two, the Hebrew listener would have picked it up.
El shaddai sounds a lot like elot hasade. Elot hasade el shaddai. And so they would have understood, oh, he's referring to gazelles and does.
But really what he's saying is to make a solemn oath by the Lord that then brings in the next question. Why is the Lord not mentioned in the song of songs at all? God's name's never there. If anywhere, we would expect God's name to be here.
God's name is not in the song of songs for a reason. God wants to disassociate himself between or from intimacy and our relationship to him. A lot of people, even in our culture, are confusing these things.
So what a husband and wife do together does not allow them to draw close to God in some mystical way. That is heresy. That is not true.
The ancients believed that. A lot of the pagan religions believed that nonsense. It was false.
And that's why they had all kinds of sexual practices that were associated with their religion. And God is intentionally separating himself from that kind of thought by not having his name in this adjuration refrain. Okay, so it's a solemn oath that the person is supposed to take.
Now, what is the actual oath? Whoo! Man, we've gone through a lot of stuff. We're just now getting to the oath that you not stir up or awaken love.
That you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. What's it mean to stir up? What does it mean to awaken? I know, right? This is when I need to shout and wake everybody up because you're falling asleep. That's what it means to wake up.
The kids, I don't know. They were tired this morning. We let them sleep in, and I made it through the house, and I was like, wake up.
Wake up. It's like something is sleeping. And then at the right time, you're supposed to wake them up.
To stir, to awaken, to start to move. We see this word in Isaiah 50, verse four. The Lord God has given me the tongue of those who are taught that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary morning by morning, he awakens.
He awakens my ear here. It's being used metaphorically, but still, the idea is to stir up, to awaken. That's what's going on when it states, do not stir up or awaken love.
So then the question is, what is love? What is love? How do we define love? How do we think about love? And this is where I want to spend a fair amount of time this morning discussing this idea of love. Because we don't talk about the song of songs, and because we don't talk about the song of songs, what's happened is we've been affected by our world's idea of love. Our children are taught this idea of love from a very young age.
So this is love. They've got it figured out. This is what love is.
Have you ever think about that? What does he know about this girl? What does he know about her? I was teaching this just this weekend at a retreat, and this guy pipes up. She's got small feet. Hey, you're right.
She does know that. He does know that she has very small and weird sized feet. They don't know anything about one another.
What does she know about him? He's a prince. She doesn't know anything about him. So this is love.
What is love? Well, let's take a look at what the Bible has to say about love, and let's learn some things about love. First, there's two kinds of love. There's an everybody kind of love.
And then there's this exclusive love. It states in mark 1231, to love your neighbor as yourself, you're supposed to love God. And then the second commandments like it.
That's the greatest commandment. The second commandments like it. You love your neighbor as yourself.
Well, are you supposed to stir up that kind of love? Yeah, you need to love one another. You stir that kind of love up. That's not what we're talking about.
In song 2735 and a four, the adjuration refrain is talking about a different kind of love. A song. Eight, six kind of love set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm.
For love is as strong as death. Jealousy is fierce as the grave. Isn't that an interesting metaphor? Love is strong as death.
That's morbid. Really? Death? Couldn't we come up with a better metaphor than death? What's he trying to compare by equating love with death? Well, what is death? Death is permanent. When somebody dies, it's over.
Well, what is love? What is love supposed to be? Permanent? Do we understand that's? What love is. Love was designed romantic. Love is designed to be something permanent.
Second, it's jealousy. Jealousy is fierce, like the grave. There is a jealous component to love, and that's why when our children awaken love early and they get involved in some kind of a romance, and then that interest is not reciprocated, guess what? That stinks like a lot.
Because what has your child awakened? Something that God designed to be jealous and to be permanent. And now it's not reciprocated, and they need to shut it down. And that's really, really hard.
Maybe they shouldn't awaken it. I wonder if God ever says anywhere in the Bible that maybe they shouldn't awaken that kind of a love. Oh, wait a minute.
That's what's going on here. Do we understand? That's what we're talking about. There's two kinds of love.
There's the everybody kind of love, and then there's this exclusive kind of love. Second, love is an action. It is something that you do.
Now, a lot of times when we define love as an action, it's something that you do. We look at it in a service kind of way in the local church or even in the home between a husband and a wife. We see that in one Corinthians 13, one and four.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clinging symbol. In verse four, love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy.
Love does not parade itself. It's not puffed up. There's a list of things that love is not, and then a list of things that love is.
And that's a valuable study. But the focus that I want you to see is that love is something that you do. And so in a marriage relationship, a husband loves his wife by doing certain things, certain actions.
But is love only an action, or is it something more than an action? And we see within the scriptures, love is more than just an action. It's a desire. It's something that's in the, it's this emotion within you.
As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, o God. You see, when we are commanded to love God, we're not supposed to just do. We're supposed to want to do.
You need to obey God's law. So do it, man. I really don't want to.
Why does God have to have all these laws? Oh, well, I'll do it anyway, because I love God, and I'm going to prove it to him by doing this even though I don't really want to. Is that the idea? Instead, a love for God motivates the doing. I love God.
Why would I do something that would contradict his law? I do the things in God's law because I love him. Okay, do you see the difference? Big difference. Big difference in how you love your spouse.
I love my spouse. I got to do this again. I'm going to love my spouse even though I don't really want to.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, do you see the difference or I love my spouse, I am going to serve my spouse. I'm going to love her.
I'm going to love him even if he doesn't deserve it. I'm going to love him. I'm going to love her.
Love is an action, but it's also a desire. But then that gets into, how can you create that desire? Because guess what? It's just not there. And that's why I like to think of love as an affection.
An affection. Think through this with me. In Deuteronomy six five, it states, you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and with all of your might.
You are commanded to love God. And you might be like, I don't. I came to church this morning.
I didn't want to. I wanted to sleep in. I wanted to get ready for the football game.
I wanted to. I didn't want to. I just did it anyway because I don't know, whatever the reason is.
By the way, I'm glad you came and it's a good thing to come even when you don't want to. That gets into the second point, okay? But you need to realize that you have a disordered love. You love something else more than God.
You love your sleep, your comfort, your entertainment or whatever it might be. Those should be subsidiary loves. To God.
You need to love God the most. And as you say, boy, God, I just don't really love you. Help me to love you more.
And I'm going to get up and I'm going to come to church anyway, even as though I don't want to. Lord, I need to get into your word on a daily basis. I don't want to.
I don't get anything out of it. Help me to get something out of it and help me to want to do it. And then take a step of faith and do it.
Get into his word. Spend time in prayer with him, do it day after day after day. And then guess what starts to happen could you maybe then start to actually enjoy it? Might it become something that you like to do? Okay, this gets into this whole theology of affections and how we change our habits, and it gets into this idea of awakening love.
You can change the things that you love in a proverbs, chapter four and verse 23, it states, keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Why do you love the things that you love? Why do you love your bed? Or why do you love your entertainment or your electronic device, or your social media account or whatever it might be? Fill in the blank. And then can you change that love? You see, we can shape our loves through the power of the Holy Spirit, working through the word of God.
We quit doing certain things, and then we start doing other things. Hand over our loves to the Lord, and then things begin to change. I'm not saying it's easy.
If you have been cultivating specific loves for years, it's going to take a long time to change those loves. And that's where christian community comes into play. You need to get connected to other men.
You need to get connected to other men who are going to help you and strengthen you and encourage you in your walk of faith. Young ladies, woman, get together with other women to do the same. And you can change.
You can. I have seen it. I've worked with young men who have been enslaved with various sins, and they can be free, but you have to be willing to give up your loves.
And that leads us to this next slide. So how do we cultivate our affections? Well, when we think through the world and everything that the world offers us, what is it doing? It's cultivating our affections. It's teaching us to love specific things.
Whether that's through the movies that you watch, the video games that you play, whether that's through the music that you listen to, or the social media accounts that you're following all the times, it's cultivating the things that you love. This is worldly influences that are conforming Christians to itself. And instead, what do we need to do? We need to be transformed.
Okay. Romans twelve, one and two. And how do we do that? If you have a free weekend and you're like, I've got a free weekend.
I am just going to veg out. You know what would be a real holy and sanctifying experience for you? You should just binge watch some Netflix TV series. Just spend, like, 15 hours on a Saturday all day just watching it.
It'll be great, and you'll feel so holy afterwards, even if the content was pretty decent and not super carnal, that's going to cultivate your affections. You just fed your heart all of that kind of desire, and it's not going to be good for your walk with God. Do you understand why? Cultivating christian community around, reading good books, getting into God's word, spending time in prayer, is going to change the things that you love.
And if you're like, man, I just don't really feel like coming to church. Well, big surprise. You spent 15 hours watching a Netflix TV series the day before.
You're shaping your loves. So we need to analyze our hearts. What are the things that I love, man? I really, really love this and that.
It's not helping me in my christian walk. I need to stop doing this and start doing this. I need to stop loving this and start loving that.
It's going to be really hard. And if you go it alone, it's going to be really, really hard. Okay, now that's how loves work.
Now let's talk about loving your spouse. Is that how it works with your spouse as well? Yes. You're like, I don't really love my spouse anymore.
What does God's word have to say about that? Start. Do it. Love her.
You covenanted to love her for the rest of your life. So guess what you need to do? You need to love her. It's like, but I don't.
I can't. Well, what are you thinking about all the time? What are you doing all the time? Can you stir up and cultivate a love for your wife? Men answer, yes. How do you do that? Remembering, focusing.
You could fill in the blank. I've got five things there describing. You could write something.
You could serve her. You could do a lot of different things. And this goes both ways, ladies.
You might be like, I don't love him anymore. He's done this x, Y and z. If you really want to kill any kind of love, all you have to meditate on is, boy, you know what? He still hasn't fixed that drawer in the kitchen.
I have a broken drawer in the kitchen. I still haven't fixed it. I got to get it fixed.
He responded to me in this way and, man, I just don't like him. And if you just keep meditating on that kind of stuff, guess what's going to happen. There ain't going to be no love and ain't going to be there.
But instead, if you look at things from the perspective of man, he's been really busy. He said that it was unkind of him, but I forgive him. You remember good memories.
You focus on good things and what happens? You cultivate love and you stir it up and you can begin to love him again. Now, I know in some families there's been a long history, years of turmoil and problems and a mess. But God is bigger than all of those problems.
And you can love again. I know you can. I've seen it work.
You can love your spouse again. Okay? But remember, the whole point of our text isn't about any of that. What's it about? Do not stir up or awaken love.
It's about not awakening love. Well, then how does this apply to our children? How does this apply to our teenagers or our college students or whatever? Okay, our singles, there's an application here for them because what do they have to do to keep love sleeping? I know what they need to do. They're at a youth event, or they're at this friend's house and this guy, there's this other girl, and man, she just looks absolutely beautiful.
It's like, man, I wonder if I can get around her. I could spend some time with her and doesn't work out that day. And they go home and they're thinking through, oh, man.
Talking to their buddies about her. And then they're like, oh, man, maybe I can catch her at this thing and maybe I can ask her out. And what are they doing? Thinking, focusing, remembering, meditating, scheming.
And what are they awakening? Do you get the idea? Okay. We've taught our young people to do this from a very young age, and we've encouraged them to start getting into relationships when they're twelve or 13 or whatever, and they're really young. I'm like, is that God's design? What does God's word have to say? Do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases.
There's a time to awaken love, and there's a time to let love sleep. And so what's the exhortation? What's the challenge to particularly our teenagers who have no business beginning any kind of an exclusive relationship with somebody else? Because what does the text say? Don't stir up or awaken love until it pleases. And I haven't talked about until it pleases.
But that's marriage, all right? That's marriage. So don't stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Our teenagers have no business waking any of this kind of stuff up.
So what do we encourage them to do when those thoughts, when those desires for somebody else come into your mind? What do you do with them? Well, God says not to stir up or awaken love, and something in me is trying to wake it up. What is that? What is that? Our kids need to kill it. They need to shut it down.
They need to say, no, I'm not going to think about that. I'm not going to meditate on that. We need to teach them to kill it, to shut it down.
It will be spiritually forming for them in the future. Think about it. If our children understand that's what this is, and then they begin the habit of shutting down that desire when it arises.
Then after they get married, that desire will appear for somebody else, and what do they need to do with it? Kill it. Shut it down. And they have had a time of training where they have been trained to kill it, to shut down that desire.
Do you understand? Okay. Love is an action. It's also this emotion, this feeling, and it's something that you can control.
One young lady, she was talking to another young lady, and she was like, yeah, the one girl, she was going through another breakup or whatever, and she was trying to console her. It's like, what about you? I've never heard you get into a relationship. It's like, that's because I haven't.
Well, haven't you ever had a crush on anybody? And she's like, no. It's like, how could you have never had a crush on anybody? It's like, easy. Anytime I have some kind of a desire for somebody, I just kill it.
You shut it down. Like, she embraced this and said, this is good. This is a better life.
And she had a friend right there going through another breakup. As a practical reminder of why it's good not to awaken love early. What if our children embraced God's idea of love? It will create a better life for them.
They have a higher probability of loving successfully. Okay, I got to keep moving. I got to go.
Maybe a little bit faster. So when is it? Until it pleases. Song a five.
Who is that? Coming up from the wilderness, leaning on her beloved under the apple tree, I awakened you. What is the apple tree? And back in song two, the man is the husband is the apple tree. He provides shade, protection for his wife.
He provides fruit, provision for his wife, and she awakens him under the apple tree. That would be the time of marriage. That is the time of awakening love.
All right, I'm going to add an additional component because some of the people here are at an age, a stage in life, where they may be pursuing a spouse. It may be time to get married. Well, how do you go about doing that? That's a bigger question that I'm not going to answer.
The Bible has, and the song of songs has a lot to say about that, but that's not today's topic. But one of the connected to awakening love is how far is too far? As far as you're not married. Well, is there some kind of physical affection that we can participate in? That's a bigger discussion.
I'm not going to get into all of it, but I'm going to get into at least one thing, and that's kissing. I want to talk to you about kissing. Most kissing in the Old Testament is men kissing other men, usually relatives, because in the ancient world, kissing was a form of a greeting.
It was like, you are my friend and you kissed the person. In fact, when I went to Argentina, by the way, this is still practiced in the world outside of America. I'm very happy it's not in America, but I was in Argentina and they would greet each other with a kiss and the kiss was basically just know, cheek to cheek.
And a lot of times it was more like an embrace and then you kissed the air and that was it. Now, in Russia, I mean, the men kissed the other men right on the lips. And I'm just know.
Not a whole lot good came out of COVID Maybe Covid killed that though, right? I don't know. Anyway, there is kissing in the ancient near eastern world, and it was more familial. In Genesis 31 28, Laban desires to kiss his children and grandchildren.
In Genesis 20, 911, Jacob. After recognizing Rachel as a relative, he kisses her. So you have this familial kissing in the Old Testament.
In the New Testament, this sinful woman anoints Jesus's feet and kisses them. That's kind of weird. That's just so weird.
Very different culture, but it was an act of submission. It's like kissing his feet. Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss.
And Jesus even says, Judas, you're betraying the son of man with a kiss because what are you saying when you would kiss? You're saying, you're my friend. It's like having a knife in his hand as he embraces and stabs him. That's not what happened there, of course, but that's what kissing him with would have.
Betraying him with a kiss would have been like. The church was Exhorted to greet one another with a holy kiss. These are greetings, friends.
That's what they were greetings well, what do we have in romantic kissing? Our minds can kind of play with us, but in proverbs, chapter seven, there's this crafty woman, and she caught this man and she kissed him. And with an impudent face, she said to him, hey, just wanted to say hi, brother. Yeah, it's not exactly what's going on there.
She entreats him. She entreats him to go to the chamber, because what is the purpose of the kiss? To deceive him, to allure him. We have this kissing in the song of songs.
In song one, two, we have kissing. Let's go there. Let's talk about this real quick.
Song of songs, chapter one, verse two. It states, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine. Kiss with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.
What kind of a kiss is this? This is a romantic kiss. Are they dating? No. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.
The word for love, there is a plural. It would be better translated, for your loves are better than wine. This is not an abstract idea of love.
In psalm one two, this is a married couple, and the wife desires the affection of her husband because she enjoys intimacy with him. That's what's going on in song one two. It is in an intimate context.
We see similar ideas of kissing in the song of songs. We see it in song chapter four, song seven, and verse nine. In song seven, nine, your mouth is like the best wine.
It goes down smoothly for my lover, gliding over lips and teeth. This is one person tasting the inside of another person's mouth. Okay, so we have words for that.
We usually say it's making out. This is a very sexualized section of the song of songs. Same thing in song eight one through four.
Now I'm going to close. I want you to turn in your bibles to song 8181, song eight one. Just the second half of the verse.
If I found you outside, I would kiss you and none would despise me. Do you see that? If I found you outside, I would kiss you and none would despise me. You see, even in the ancient world, if a couple was demonstrating public displays of affection, it was looked down upon in the ancient world.
And so here, the wife, she's wanting to kiss her husband publicly. And she would be despised if she did that publicly. What does our culture have to say about that? Kind of interesting, a similar thing.
If a couple is making out, what does somebody say? Go get a room. Because there's even still in our culture a connection between kissing and intimacy. So we see that in song one two.
We see it in song 79, song eight, one through four. We could develop that further, but we're not going to take the time to do that. But what we as Christians have done is we've created this boundary, this line of intimacy for our children, and it doesn't correspond to what the Bible says or even what wisdom says, by the way.
So I'm going to put a few quotes up here from what christian authors have written. Chuck Milan, and we're just friends and other dating lives, wrote, level three is dating with the future in view. This is an exclusive relationship.
Kissing can begin at this level, but is to be avoided if it stirs too much passion. To which I would then ask, can kissing possibly not stir up too much passion? Its design is to stir up passion. Level four, dating and engaged to you.
Physical limits may need extra protection as desires will increase with commitments. In Marion Jordan Ellis's book, she writes, anything beyond kissing prior to marriage is off limits. And this is what we keep telling our children, is that kissing is the line, don't go beyond kissing.
But she even admits kissing is dangerous. Kissing opens the door to sexual temptation and makes it very difficult to remain pure. And then she attests herself in her personal testimony.
Even though we didn't cross the line, we struggled in order not to fall into sin. We had to reestablish our boundaries from time to time. And as somebody who's worked at a Bible college for a long period of time, and I've worked with a lot of young people who have dated, and in many instances, this is a very common testimony.
I wonder if there might be a better way. And we need to think through what God's word has to say. Lauren winner.
In her book, she writes, I realize some readers will think that kissing ought to be off limits until you've said, I do. If you're in the no kissing camp, don't worry, I won't try to talk you out of it. I know people who've held to the no kissing before marriage rule, and through knowing them, I've moved from thinking they're nuts to having the utmost respect for them.
Just kind of interesting, because she used to think it was silly. Why would you marry somebody that you haven't even ever kissed? But then after living and seeing the fruits of their efforts, and then also, what happens if you are kissing? She's like, oh, maybe I need to rethink this nevertheless, she states, but I never joined their cause. What's compelling about the no kissing rule is its clarity.
It is very, very clear. It emits no gray area. If you're not even smooching, you're unlikely to find yourself sliding down a slippery slope to sex itself.
There is something decidedly. This is an important sentence, okay? Because she's completely oblivious to the song of songs, which is kind of interesting, too. Why is a woman writing on intimacy and she doesn't know anything about the song of songs? She's a christian woman writing about intimacy and doesn't know anything about the song of songs.
If you're a Christian and you're going to talk about relationships, you'd think that you would know what the Bible has to say about it. Anyway, that's another beef of mine. But she's completely oblivious to the song of songs.
And she writes, there is something decidedly unnatural about sparking desire and then arresting it night after night. She's right. And when we tell our young people kissing is the line, they have to arrest that desire night after night after night.
And what ends up happening? They end up going a little bit further and a little bit further, and then before you know it, we have even bigger problems. She states here, the last sentence. To refrain from kissing is to avoid not only temptation, but also the odd shocks, fits, and starts of interrupted desire.
I believe this includes the adjuration refrain when it states, do not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. That would apply to couples that are close to marriage. Pursuing marriage, about to be married, guess what? You need to be very careful physically to not awaken even that kind of love.
But the exhortation is broader than just kissing. Do you understand this whole thing? The kissing is just like a little sub point. Awakening love is way bigger than just physical affection.
I had this young man, and I was the girl that he liked, didn't like him. It's a common occurrence at a Bible college, and he had spent a fair amount of time with her. I was like, how physical did you guys get? He's like, oh, I haven't even held her hand.
I'm like, really? He's like, no. I mean, they had no physical relationship at all. Zero.
All right? And he was, like, a mess. Why? Because he kept thinking about her, like, all the time. And what had he then done? He had awakened love.
Awakening love is more than just kissing. I would say that that's part of it. But a big part of awakening love takes place right here.
It's in your head. We need to teach our children not to awaken love. There's a whole lot more that could be said.
I hope this at least introduces you to a concept that we often avoid. It's something that we don't teach to our young people, to our children. But it's important.
It can help us in raising our children so that they would love successfully. It can help our teenagers and our young adults to marry better. It's an important foundational principle for our daughters.
Will you do it? Will you teach them? Will you encourage them? Let's do it. Let's teach our children. We made mistakes.
My wife and I did. I'm guessing you did too. Have you asked for forgiveness? Good.
Be forgiven. And then point the next generation in a better direction. Lord, thank you for this time we were able to get into your word.
I pray, Lord, that we would point the next generation in a better path. You are a good God and you have given us answers concerning relationships. Help us to trust you and what you have to say about love and relationship.
Your way is best. In Jesus name, amen.