Part 1 - 02/02/2025 - Lessons from the Song of Solomon (Love Month)

Grace Place Atlanta COGBF 4700 Mitchell Street Forest Park, GA 30297 Website: atlantacogbf.org Email: info@atlantacogbf.org Phone: (404) 241-6781 Wayne D. Mack, Pastor / Pastor Wayne D. Mack Sermon Notes February 2, 2025 Lessons From the Song of Solomon Welcome to Love Month! It has become our tradition here at GP to celebrate February as Love Month. And so, in the way of Sunday morning messages, for this year’s Love Month, after meeting with myself, I’ve decided to do something Rated Ex-tra-ordinary. I would like to bring a series from a book of the Bible we rarely hear from and us preachers seldom allude to or preach from. That book is the Song of Solomon. This morning, I want to do an introduction of the Book, then -- in the weeks ahead minister from a select group of passages on love and relationship principles from Solomon’s Song. To begin, if you’re not familiar with this book, let me give fair warning – it is a book that features adult content from the heart of God. It focuses on how to celebrate the joyful and mysterious love between a man and a woman within the created order designed by God. It extols the Godordained goodness and virtue of sexual love in marriage (7:8–12). 1 Here's a quick preview: Song of Solomon 7: 7-12 7 You are slender like a palm tree, and your breasts are like its clusters of fruit. 8 I said, “I will climb the palm tree and take hold of its fruit.” May your breasts be like grape clusters, and the fragrance of your breath like apples. 9 May your kisses be as exciting as the best wine— Young Woman Yes, wine that goes down smoothly for my lover, flowing gently over lips and teeth.[b] 10 I am my lover’s, and he claims me as his own. 11 Come, my love, let us go out to the fields and spend the night among the wildflowers.[c] 12 Let us get up early and go to the vineyards to see if the grapevines have budded, if the blossoms have opened, and if the pomegranates have bloomed. There I will give you my love. Can you handle it GP?!? My prayer is that you will be compelled to go deeper with this book during your personal Bible study time. 2 I’ve entitled this Love Month series: Lessons of Love from the Song of Solomon Now, let’s get a little more formal background on what this book is all about and all that it has to offer. First thing first: the title of the Book: The original title is Song of Songs. It is taken from the opening verse of the book: Chapter 1, Verse 1:1The song of songs, which is Solomon’s. The book is equally known as the Song of Solomon. And in some cases: “The Song” or “Best Song”. I will toggle between the titles: Song of Songs and/or Song of Solomon. The bottom line is, this is Solomon’s song of songs. Who was Solomon? Known also as Jedidiah, he was the fourth ruler of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. He was the son of King David and remembered having been the last ruler of all Twelve Tribes of Israel under a united Israel and Judah. Generally, he is best known for being the wisest man that ever lived outside of Jesus Christ. 3 This book bearing his name is Solomon’s song of songs – meaning it was more wonderful than any other he had penned. The Book of First Kings tells us that King Solomon “spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005 (1Kings 4:32; Ps. 72 and 127). But this book was his magnum opus, his greatest work – his loveliest poem, his song of songs. It was his masterpiece -- the greatest of all songs. Just as the “Holy of Holies” is the holiest place and the “King of Kings” is the highest of all kings, so the “song of songs” is the greatest of all songs. It is said that there is no love song that compares with that of Solomon and his Lebanese farm-girl-turned-queen, the Shulamite. I believe it’s safe to say that most of us have a deep love song that we have in our hearts for the one we love – whether it’s one we wrote ourselves or adopted from a popular artist. Songs like: Just to be close to you; Let’s stay together; Endless Love; Love will keep us together; When a man loves a woman; (You’re so vain). The theme of the book is love, and the greatest virtue is love 1 Cor. 13:13 reminds us that: 13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love… 4 In Solomon’s younger days, before he became entangled with the gods of his many pagan wives (1 Kings 11:1–8), Solomon understood the joys and virtues of married love and wrote this beautiful book. He ultimately had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kings 11:3) and in so doing violated the law of the Lord (Deut. 17:17). He married many of his princess wives mainly to establish peaceful and profitable relations with their fathers. It’s not difficult . . . How Do We Apply What We’ve Heard Today . . . From courtship to marriage to the assurance of love, Song of Solomon poetically presents a broad range of events and feelings in the days leading up to and during a marriage. It encourages enduring love amid the pretty jealousies and fears sure to threaten even the strongest of relationships. We should heed the beautiful words of the Song of Songs by continuing to value marriage between a man and a woman as one of the bedrocks of society, appreciating the goodness and the beauty born out of the union of wo people in holy matrimony. Do you consider your marriage a sign of God’s goodness and beauty working in your life, or has it started to feel like something less than that over time? Song of Solomon reminds us that both marriage and sex originated with God. 5 We should therefore consider both of these evidence of His grace working itself out in the world. Song of Solomon should be read and revered for exactly what it purports to be: a record of the glory – and at times the grind – of human, marital love. It is a celebration of romance, realism, and reconciliation, not to mention purity, joy, and the virtue named by the apostle Paul as the greatest of them all selfless, others-centered love (1 Cor 13). The Song reminds us that with God, all things are possible, even marital love in a culture where marriage has fallen on hard times. In the end, the couple, Solomon and Shullie, proved that “many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it” (Solomon 8:7). Their experience stands as an inspiration to couples everywhere who seek the beauty and purity of love that leads to lifelong commitment. Without the Song, the Bible could be seen as incomplete as it would include prohibitions about illicit sexual relations but lack the positive instructions that enable the reader to discover the joy of healthy love. The fact that Solomon himself may not have paid particular heed to his own advice in no way undermines this message. The New Testament and the Book The apostle Paul uses the picture of the love between the man and woman reflected in the Song of Songs to speak of the relationship between Christ and His church (Eph 5:22–23). And interestingly the ultimate union of a believer with the Lord is described as a wedding (Rev 19:6–8). 6