Dr. Tim Little explains how we can take Song of Solomon literally, just as the wife desires a kiss from her husband. 
How should we biblically love our spouse?

Solomon's Wisdom Concerning Relationships
(Song of Solomon 1:1-4; 8:11-14)
By Dr. Tim Little

Enjoyed knowing him then and getting to know him a little bit better again now. So, Dr. Love, please come share the word with us.

Thanks, Sean. And Sean, I know you offered me water earlier. I might need it after singing.

I don't know if you guys have one available. My throat is a little bit dry after singing. And I had a coffee this morning.

Actually, my wife and my children aren't with me this morning. Sorry they weren't able to make it. We just had a lot of Christmas stuff going on at our church, so my wife dropped me off at the slowdown just across the street.

I've been there, like, one other time. They have some really good coffee there. I had a pour over that was very nice and was able to take care of a few things.

And then they went to our church and they'll pick me up later. But anyway, the coffee and then the singing and all of that. Thank you, Sean.

Appreciate that. I'm looking forward to getting into God's word with you with a topic that's not very Christmasish. Sorry, but it's something that I've done a fair amount of study in.

In fact, my wife and I wrote a book about this one book of the Bible. The book of the Bible is the Song of Solomon. So you can go ahead and find your place in the Song of Solomon.

We'll start by reading the text that we're going to be looking at, but you can go ahead and turn to Song of Solomon. It's proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and then Song of Solomon. If you hit Isaiah, you went too far.

So Isaiah is a big book. Right before Isaiah is the Song of Solomon. It's a small book.

It's a little book, part of the wisdom literature, the wisdom literature of Solomon. And it's a book that we kind of struggle with just because of some of the language in it. It's a book of the Bible that we often reserve not for the pulpit, not for right here, something that we often think this just needs to be studied, maybe like in a Bible study or in a married's class or something like that.

But actually, the message of the Song of Solomon, I'm going to argue, is for everybody, even for our younger ChIldrEn, they need to receive the instruction that God teaches concerning relationships. And the SOng of SoLoMOn is given here for that reason. Now, when we think through the revelation of God's word, there's a lot of the Bible.

In fact, even most of the Bible concerns our relationship between ourselves and God. After all, who's the primary individual in the Bible. Well, God.

And God sent his son Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, born to die for our sins so that we could be forgiven. The story of redemption and how you can have your sins forgiven, you can be reconciled with God. That is the major.

Well, maybe not the major, but at least a major theme of the BIble, and it's very, very important. But then there's this thing about us living life in this world. And the wisdom literature in the Bible, it's given to us to give us wisdom concerning life in this world.

Let's read this section of the song of Solomon. You can just follow along in your copy of God's word. I'm going to be reading from the ESV, but whatever translation you use is going to be fine.

Song of songs. Song of Solomon. One, one through four.

And then we're actually going to flip to the end of the book, and we're going to do chapter eight, verses eleven through 14. So just follow along in your copy of God's word, the song of songs, which is Solomon's. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.

Your anointing oils are fragrant. Your name is oil poured out. Therefore, virgins love you.

Draw me after you. Let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers.

We will exalt and rejoice in you. We will extol your love more than wine. Rightly do they love you.

Now turn to the end of the book. Chapter eight, verses eleven through 14. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon.

He let out of the vineyard to keepers. Each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand silver pieces. My vineyard, my very own is before me.

You, O Solomon, may have the thousand and the keepers of the fruit. 200. O you who dwell in the gardens with companions, listening for your voice, let me hear it.

Make haste, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices. You can go ahead and turn your bibles back to song of songs, chapter one. And before we really get into this, I want to pray.

Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, thank you for this day and this time that we can get into your word. We thank you for the revelation that you provide in the song of Solomon that can help us with relationships.

Lord, I pray for the marriages in this congregation. I pray that they would be strong and be rooted in the gospel of Jesus the Messiah, and that they would be happy and joyous. Lord, I pray for the marriages, and I pray for those who are unmarried those who are single, as your word has something to teach them.

Specifically from the Song of Solomon, concerning being single and unmarried in desire, I pray that you would give me wisdom of words as I speak and explain your word that the body of Christ may be instructed in righteousness, thoroughly equipped to do every good work as they live their lives here in this world. In Jesus name, amen. Okay, so the song of Solomon, Solomonic wisdom concerning relationships.

Here we go. We're going to jump into this, and I want to just talk about some preliminary things right at the beginning, the song of songs. First of all, the first preliminary that I have is that the song of songs should be interpreted literally.

It should be interpreted literally, and you might be like, literally. Well, what do you mean by literally? Well, let me read that first verse for you again. Well, verse two, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.

So what is a kiss here in psalm one, two, is there any clue or tip off that the kiss is something other than a kiss? Is there something wrong with a wife desiring the kisses and the affections of her husband? Is there some other place in the Bible where it says that a wife should not want the affection or the kisses of her husband? Are you following what I'm doing here? See, the text should actually be interpreted literally, but a lot of times we're kind of uncomfortable with this, because what are we more familiar with when we're in the Bible? Well, we're more familiar with, you know what? Jesus was born as a baby. He came here on a mission, and it had nothing to do with kissing. Okay? What it had to do with his sacrifice on the cross so that you could have your sins forgiven.

That's exactly right. And that is the overarching theme, or one overarching theme of the biblical text. But as we think through the relationship between husband and wife, that's what this book is about.

And I fail to see some place in the scriptures where it says that a wife should not desire the affections of her husband. So why can't a kiss literally be a kiss? And a lot of people seeking to find a more holy meaning to this passage, they interpret the kiss as some kind of relationship between, say, Jesus and the church or God and Israel. But this text, I think, should be.

Well, I don't think it should be interpreted just like we interpret all of the other Bible. And so when it states, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, what should we understand that to be? Well, she desires kisses. She desires the affection of her husband.

And there's nothing wrong with that. That's okay. We can be okay with that as Bible believing Christians.

So the first preliminary that we're talking about here is that the song of songs should be interpreted literally. Second, the song of songs is a song and not a drama. Now, this is really important, because a lot of people, they try to find a story in the song of songs, and they kind of run into some problems because some weird stuff ends up starting to happen.

So, for example, a drama is going to be like a story where you have these characters. So Solomon and one of his queens. Do you hear my language there? One of his queens.

Okay, so I don't know how familiar you are with the Bible, but he had quite a few of those. All right, like, 700. And then the 300 concubines, he had a thousand women.

Man, this guy's not the best role model, is he? I mean, that doesn't sound like God's design for relationships. Yeah, exactly. So as we think through this book, think of it as a song, not as a drama.

And so as you read through the song of songs, don't think through. Oh, well, you have Solomon. He's like the good guy or the bad guy.

That's actually a point of discussion. And then who are these girls? Okay, who is this woman? Who is the one speaking here? In fact, in song one, two, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Well, this is the ideal female lover.

That's who this is. And then there's the ideal male lover, the ideal husband. He's the example to every husband, just like the woman's the example to every wife.

This is God's revelation to us. Okay, so as you think through songs, think with about a song with me. Some songs tell stories as the song goes through, but most songs are more like using abstract characters, like fictitious people to help teach you truths or to help bring you into the worship of God.

We see this other places in the Bible. So, for example, specifically, the proverbs 31 woman, which leads to the third point. The main characters are ideal, archetypal characters, like the proverbs 31 woman.

And you might be thinking to yourself, oh, the proverbs 31 woman. What does she have to do with this? Well, she is not a real woman. If you study through the proverbs 31 woman, I mean, this woman has got to be superwoman.

She's planting vineyards with her own hands, by the way. It's not like she's just overseeing it. She's like a seamstress.

And she has this fabric business that she's running. She's up before the sun comes out. She's working past the setting of the sun.

She works, like, all day long. She's doing all of this stuff. She's like superwoman.

Or maybe it's more of like a composite character, where the proverbs 31, woman may be a kind of woman that rises early or a kind of woman that labors into the evening, or a kind of woman that might have a seamstress business or a kind of woman that might have a vineyard that she maintains. In other words, she's working hard with her hands, with her body to build up her family. She's an ideal composite character that could manifest itself in several different ways.

In other words, she's not a real person. Guess what you have in the song of songs, similar characters. How are we doing? Are you following this? Okay, so the woman that speaks here, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, is not a real person.

She represents true proverbs 31, womanhood in relationship to her husband. And she provides, then an example to unmarried woman. This is how you love your husband.

And then also married woman, this is how you love your husband. Similarly, then, to the men, guess what, men. The male lover in the song, which, by the way, is not Solomon, remember, he's not a very good role model for us.

But the male character provides an example to our young men who are unmarried, saying, this is when you get married. This is the way that a biblical man should live his life in relationship to his wife. And similarly, the male lover provides an example to married men.

Okay, you might like. Okay, that makes some sense. Hopefully that makes some sense for you.

These are some of the preliminaries, but let's get into the Bible before we get into this further. Let's look at what the text actually says. So looking at psalm one, two, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth.

For your love is better than wine. Your anointing oils are fragrant. Your name is oil poured out.

Therefore, virgins love you. Let's talk about verse three a little bit. And by the way, this is going to tick into the.

I just have a big empty blank on your notes for the song's instruction to the young woman. And you might want to add a few notes in this section, because verse three is primarily for you. So verse three, as we think about this verse, your anointing oils are fragrant.

Now, we interpret the song of songs literally. So if we're going to interpret the song literally, the man's anointing oils are fragrant. In other words, guess what? He doesn't stink.

So what's the instruction to married men and young men alike don't stink? Take care of yourself. Wash. Okay? It's pretty practical, but kind of nice, right? Okay.

If you're going to be married, you should take care of yourself and be clean and so on and so forth. Do you see how this is very practical? Okay, now I'm going to do a little switcheroo on you because I kind of actually led you astray there. That is true.

By the way, guys don't stink. That's actually more from song five, though. What does the text hearsay? It says, your anointing oils are fragrant.

But then the text states your name is oil poured out. Okay, so oil poured out. You remember that narrative in the gospels where Mary Magdalene, she opens that flask and pours the oil into the basin to anoint the feet of Jesus? And the text states how when she poured the oil out into the basin, what happened? The air, it just permeated the room, the fragrance.

And you have to remember, people in the ancient world stunk because they didn't have cleanliness factors like what we have. Okay, so when you pour the oil out, what's going to happen? It's going to be a very strong smell. It's going to fill up the room.

So he's building, or she's building on this idea of scent, but what is she saying? Smells so good? Look at the text. Let's start at the beginning again. Your anointing oils are fragrant.

Your name is oil poured out. Oh. What is literal interpretation? Literal interpretation is acknowledging.

She's not talking about his smell at all. She's just created a metaphor and his smell connects to his name. And what is his name? That's his reputation.

That's who he really is. So what is it that smells so good about her husband? I mean, guys don't stink, all right? But what really makes him smell good is his reputation. That he is a godly individual.

That he puts his wife's needs above his own. That he leads and directs his family and invests in his family. That he fill in all the christian virtues that we preach and teach all the time at the church.

That's what actually makes a guy smell good. Now then, we have this really weird line at the end. What does it say? Therefore, virgins love you.

Virgins love you. What? Why are they coming into this conversation? That doesn't make any sense. I thought that she's just exalting in the love of her husband because he's a good guy, he has a good reputation.

Well, think about this with me. If you have ideal characters, and she's an ideal character, and he's an ideal character, and you have this ideal marriage, and she's like, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. And she desires the affection of her husband.

And what is the reason why she desires the affection of her husband? Because he has a good reputation and he's a good guy. And then she says, therefore, all of the virgins love you. In other words, all of the young ladies, they love this kind of a man.

Young ladies, what kind of a guy should you be pursuing for a future spouse? A guy who smells good. A guy who has a good reputation. Do you see how the song of songs is not just written to married couples is actually, I believe, primarily written to our daughters, to single young women, and it's teaching them, this is the kind of a guy that you want, a man who has a good reputation, a man who smells good, and what a powerful metaphor, smell.

Let's just say, hey, you know what, ladies? If you don't value this characteristic of a man, well, what are you actually desiring? You're desiring somebody smelly. And imagine you're going to covenant to be wed to this man who's going to be smelly, and you're going to be close, like, intimately close with him for the rest of your life, and you're swearing and agreeing to do that. Do you see how that has a bigger pull on our daughter's affections? Revealing, hey, you know what? What do you want? What do you really want? Do you want a good smelling guy or do you want a bad smelling guy? So have I taught anything theologically wrong? Is the song of songs teaching anything contrary to what you've been taught in other parts of the scriptures? It's simply applying the principles that you've heard many times over to relationships.

And that's why I think the song of songs should be interpreted. How? Literally, we need to actually just let the text speak for itself and then teach it to our young people and say, hey, this message is for you. You need to be wise in what you're looking for in a future spouse.

And then it is instructive to our wives and to our husbands. Guys, maybe she doesn't ever say, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth. Well, there could be several different reasons for that.

Maybe one of those reasons is because you don't smell very good. And you need to think through, am I really a guy who loves God, who's seeking to lead his family, who's seeking to be involved in his church, involved in this community for the glory of God? Maybe if I refocus my attention from all of my personal, worldly pursuits and pleasures, I'd be a guy that smells better that my wife might like. There's a lot of instruction that we can glean from the song of songs concerning relationships.

And it doesn't have to do as much with intimacy as it does with the spiritual journey, the spiritual walk. Okay, so let's come back to the points. We went through the first three preliminaries.

Now, my next preliminaries I've kind of already gotten into a little bit, is that the song of songs is part of the Bible. Let's see here. There we go.

The song of songs is part of the Bible. It's kind of interesting that I have to encourage people to study the Bible, the song of songs, because it is part of the Bible. I love having Bible studies with unmarried Christians through the song of songs.

I've done this in mixed company. It's better if I can just meet with the guys and my wife just meets with the girls because then they can just be more direct. And plus, there's not going to be a whole lot of questions.

You put single guys and single girls together and you talk through a topic like the song of songs and you're just going to get mum's the word. Nobody's going to say anything. So it can be better if it's like gendered out.

But the song of songs is part of the Bible, and all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete. That's a really important point, that the man of God may be complete. And our young people don't really have instruction concerning relationships because there's this book of the Bible that we're really uncomfortable with and as a result, we haven't studied it.

So because we haven't studied this book in the Bible about relationships and we haven't taught it to our children, well, there's still this desire for relationships and they're going to get instruction someplace. So where do you think they're going to get it? They're going to get it from the world. And we all know how that goes.

Train wreck after train wreck after train wreck our young people are not complete. We have problems in our marriages because we're not studying what God actually says about relationships, what God actually says to teach our children about relationships. What my wife and I have realized is that this is revolutionary because even the christian subculture has unknowingly adopted worldly values when it comes to love and relationships and affection.

For example, because. Flip over in your Bible to song of songs, chapter two and verse seven. I'm just going to give you one of those.

I'm going to take a little, aside from the notes here, a little bit, but. Song of songs, chapter two and verse seven. And this is for some of you raising your little, little ones.

Song of songs two, seven. I adjure you, o daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles, or the dose of the field, that you not stir up or awaken love until it pleases. Now, I'll just flip over.

I want you to turn in your Bible to song 35. Song 35. 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.

Man. Sounds real familiar. So anything different between those two verses? No, they're exactly the same.

Why would somebody repeat something? Because it's important. And what is this verse? Know, I'd love to just walk you through the entire thing and spend a lot of time developing this, but you're just going to get the two second version. It's saying not to awaken love.

And who's not supposed to awaken love? The daughters of Jerusalem. Who would that be? Our children. Our young children.

Our daughters don't fall in love. That's literally what God's word is teaching. And yet what do we end up doing? We encourage reading.

I encourage reading. I encourage my children to read. And then what do they end up reading? Every christian book seems to have some romance novel component to it, even if it's not the primary point.

And then what is that cultivating in our daughters? What is that cultivating even in our young men? Desire. It's awakening love. And the christian subculture is even bought into this.

We need to wrestle with what does this really mean, to not awaken love. God's given us instruction on how our children and ourselves can love successfully, but unfortunately, we haven't given them the information. We haven't given them the tools.

So what do we need to do? The song of songs is part of the Bible. They need to study it. Let's teach them.

Song of songs is part of the Bible. Second, I'm having problems with this thing. If you can just advance it go to the next one, too.

Or was that me that worked it? Maybe it was. Oh, here we go. Song of songs is Solomon's best song.

Song of songs is Solomon's best song. And this is kind of an interesting thing to think about. Solomon was quite the composer.

He had 3000 proverbs and his songs were a. I'm like, man, how can I illustrate a 1005 songs? Well, there are 100 music notes on there. Hundred.

Imagine a 1005. Isn't that funny? 1005 says it. Just a 1000.

1005. Well, what's the best one? Well, psalm 72. Of course.

Psalm 72 is a psalm of Solomon. And it talks about the king, the king of kings coming and ruling on this earth. Or maybe it's psalm 127, about the christian home.

Nope. Nope. What's the best song? It's this one.

This is Solomon's best song. It says so. Where does it say so? Well, in song one.

One. The song of songs. What does that mean of all of the songs? This is boom, the song.

It's his best one. Okay. And then next, Solomon wrote the song of songs to singles.

And I'm like, huh? Where are you proving that? Well, that's where we get this daughters of Jerusalem terminology. Oop, my boxes got a little bit messed up there. But it says seven times the daughters of Jerusalem.

Seven times. That's kind of a special number. And four times they are adjured.

It's like, I put you under oath. I strongly encourage you to do x, y or z to do something. The primary audience is the song of songs.

We see this in this correlation between proverbs. You see in proverbs, you have this exhortation, my son, my son, my son. Because proverbs is primarily written to young men, can young women glean and benefit from the instruction in the book of Proverbs? Of course they can.

Should our daughters study the Book of Proverbs? Yes, but the three things that proverbs really exhorts in our young men are three sins that our young men greatly struggle with, which are woman, wealth, the pursuit of wealth, and get rich quick. All right. And laziness.

And I speak to young men all the time about these three common vices for our men deceived by the pursuit of woman, laziness and wealth. And the book is primarily written to our young men. Well, what is song of songs primarily written to the daughters of Jerusalem.

Who are they? Our daughters, that's who they are. So what do we have? Proverbs. You have the sage, the father, and he is speaking to the son and then the song of songs, what do you have? You have the experienced wife, the ideal woman, and she's teaching the daughters of Jerusalem.

She's teaching the next generation. Love this way. Don't want this.

Love this. I'm going to cultivate your affections to love God's way. How can I do that? I'm going to use a figure of his speech, the sense of smell.

Marry a guy who smells well. Choose a guy who has a good reputation, and you can say that 100 times to a young woman. But if you paint it in the language of song 13, it's going to have a little bit more powerful of a punch using and evoking the sense of smell.

Okay, so the song's instruction to the young woman, we went through already, verses two through four. We talked about it a little bit, where our daughters need to pursue a young man who has a good reputation, somebody who has a good smell. There's some additional exhortations in this text concerning God's design for love.

Really? Song one, one through four is kind of an introduction to the entire book of the song of songs. I skipped verse four. Draw me after you.

Let us run. The king has brought me into his chambers. We will exalt and rejoice in you.

We will extol your love more than wine. Rightly, do they love you. Now, a lot of bibles have this little statement, like others or the daughters of Jerusalem or somebody else is speaking in verse four.

Your Bible may have that the woman is speaking the whole way through the pronouns there, we will exalt and rejoice in. You should read, let us exalt and rejoice in you, where the two lovers rejoice and exalt in intimacy the way that God designed it as being a good thing, something that's delightful, not just for the husband, but also for the wife. And if you marry a guy who has a good reputation, God's design is that you would enjoy this aspect of your relationship with him, and it would be something enjoyable for the two of you.

This is God's design for intimacy in song one, two through four. Now, the final section I want to talk about is in song 811 through 14, because the song begins with an exhortation to the young woman and the song as a whole, the primary audience, is to our unmarried single daughters. But the song ends with an exhortation to actually the young men.

And so we're going to conclude with that exhortation, psalm 811 through 14. I'm just going to read through the text again. Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon.

He let out the vineyard to keepers. Each one was to bring for its fruit a thousand pieces of silver. My vineyard, my very own, is before me.

You, o Solomon, may have the thousand and the keepers of the fruit, 200. O you who dwell in the gardens with companions, listening for your voice, let me hear it. Make haste, my beloved.

Be like a gazelle or a young stag on the mountains of spices. Okay, so what in the world is going on here? Solomon has a vineyard. What in the world is up with the vineyard? And I don't have time to develop all of this for you.

It would be good for you to study out the vineyard terminology in the song of songs. And by the way, my wife and I did write a book on this. And so if you're still struggling, you can acquire a copy of our book, and you can read through that, where we explain the song of songs and then also give instruction on how to apply it, particularly to single people.

And this is one of my key texts for young men, because what is the vineyard? Is he literally talking about a vineyard? Well, keep your hand there in song 811 through 14. All right. In fact, it's nice.

You've got it right up there on the screen. See that? Solomon had a vineyard at Baal Hamon. Now turn in your bibles to psalm one five.

So right back to the beginning of the book. And in psalm one five and six, we have this statement, I am very dark but lovely, o daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Qadar, like the curtains of Solomon, do not gaze at me because I am dark, because the sun has looked upon me. Isn't that fascinating? Let's just stop and just give you a little nugget real quick.

What is the woman saying here at the beginning of this text? She's saying, I don't like how I look. I've been out working in the field, and I've got a farmer's tan, and I look terrible. So she says, don't look at me.

Isn't that fascinating? We live in such an enlightened age. Our daughters don't struggle with that anymore. They all are very content with the appearance that they have.

And this is never an issue anymore. I'm being sarcastic. Not a whole lot's changed, and that's why.

What does the song have to teach, even about beauty and your physical appearance? It's got a message for our daughters. It can be very encouraging, but that's a message for something else. You can look at our book or study that out on your own.

So what's going on here, though? She's not content with the way that she looks. And then it continues to read in verse six. My mother's sons were angry with me.

They made me keeper of the vineyards. Okay, so she is physically taking care of vineyards. Then what does she say? But my own vineyard I have not kept.

Oh, so there's these other vineyards that she's had to take care of, but then she has her own personal vineyard and she hasn't been able to take care of that one. Is that what's going on here? No, she's like, I've had to take care of physical vineyards over here. So guess what? I haven't been able to take care of the vineyard.

Of her body. Have you ever thought about the terminology that we use for married couples? The man is called a husband. What is that? What is husband? What is husbandry? It's a vineyard term, and I haven't been able to study this out.

Where in the world do we get this idea from? But essentially, what is a man's name? It's embedded in his very name that he's supposed to husband. He's the husbander. The one that takes care of the vineyard.

And who's the vineyard? His wife. What's the man supposed to do? Husband the vineyard. Take care of his wife.

Okay, now flip to the end of the book. Well, you can look at the screen. Solomon had a vineyard.

What would that be? A wife at Baal Hamon. And people are like, where is Baal Hamon? Find it in the Bible. It's not there.

Okay. Because it's not a real place. Baal means master or husband.

Hamon means many. So Solomon had a vineyard at husband of many. Was Solomon the husband of many? Yep.

He had a thousand. So this is a reference to his harem. Did Solomon husband the vineyard? No.

How could he possibly take care of a thousand women? So what did he do? He had to hire people to take care of the vineyard. He leased the vineyard to keepers. Everyone is to bring for its fruit a thousand silver coins.

A thousand silver coins is a lot of money in the biblical world. So what is this text talking about? Well, this text, Solomon is not the hero. He's not the good guy.

He doesn't present the way love is supposed to be. Solomon presents the way that love is perceived by the world, and this is still the way that it is today. What kind of intimacy did Solomon enjoy? He had an intimate experience with the beauty queens.

Expensive. Those type of women cost a lot of money. And then he had an intimate experience with those expensive type of women.

Okay, hold your finger there. In the song of songs, go to Esther, chapter two. Esther, chapter two for us, we can't get our minds back into that ancient world and what was going on in that ancient world, okay? This whole idea of a harem and all of these wives that he had, we get a little bit of a picture of it in the story of Esther, because Esther became part of a king's harem.

That's what the text communicates in Esther chapter two. And in Esther, chapter two and verse twelve, you can see a little bit of a picture of what the ancient king would have valued in a woman. And it's very ephemeral, it's very physical.

So Esther two, verse twelve. Now, when the turn came for each young woman to go into King Ahasuerus, after being twelve months under the regulations for the woman, since this was the regular period of their beautifying, six months with oil of myrrh and six months with spices and ointments for women, okay? So Xerxes went and he said, hey, I need a new wife. And he goes and he takes all the pretty girls, and then they go through basically a year's worth of beauty treatments with myrrh and aloes and ointments and so on and so forth to basically make them super beautiful.

Because what kind of an intimate experience does Xerxes want to have? That kind. And guess what? That's going to cost. Song 811, a lot of money.

A thousand silver coins. That's the ancient king's perception of a good intimate experience. That's what Solomon had.

How are we doing? Is that a temptation for our young men these days? Oh, no, not at all. They all know what they should really value in a woman. They all really know that they have a responsibility to be a husbander of the vineyard and that they shouldn't just pay somebody else to do it.

Do we understand how this is relevant for our sons? Our sons are bombarded with, hey, wow, look at that woman. She is absolutely stunning. She is beautiful.

Look at her personality. Wow, it's so engaging. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Is that what God wants them to value? So back to song 811. Solomon had a vineyard. He had a whole pile of women, and they were beautiful.

They were the best. And he presumably had the best intimate experience that anybody could ever have. But there was one vineyard he never got.

Look at verse twelve. What does it say? My vineyard, my very own is before me. Do you see that somebody else is speaking here.

The ideal woman, the proverbs 31 woman. The excellent woman, the woman that Solomon really wanted. And in the midst of all of his delightful, intimate experiences with all these women, the real woman that he really wanted rejected him.

Why? Because he wanted the wrong things in a woman. My own vineyard is before me. It's extremely emphatic.

It's like Solomon, you get your thousand, the ones that tend its fruit, 200, whatever. I don't want anything to do with that. And what is the song then? Teaching our sons, what do you want? Do you want a Solomonic kind of a vineyard or do you want an excellent wife kind of a vineyard? Because guess what the excellent wife does? What does the proverbs 31 woman do? She works in vineyards.

Like, literally, that's one of the characteristics in proverbs 31, is that the proverbs 31 woman works in vineyards. What's going to happen to her beauty when she's literally working in vineyards? It's going to be marred. Think through Ruth, the virtuous woman.

She's working from morning to evening to provide for not just herself, but the widow Naomi. And what's going to happen to her beauty in that kind of a setting? It's going to be marred. And the things that you value.

Men are fleeting, and they're not the foundation. They're going to lead you to the virtuous woman, the excellent wife. You're like, but where's the exhortation to the young men? This is exhortation here to the married men, too.

Is your wife this woman? Maybe she's not. Well, maybe she's not because you're not wanting the right things. Your wife can never really be this kind of a woman because she can't ever live up to your expectations, because what are you always wanting? Well, what Solomon had, you're wanting the wrong things.

And so you won't be satisfied to actually enjoy the intimacy that God's given you in your spouse. But then coming back to the young men, I think the primary exhortation here is to the young men. And I see that in verse 13.

What does it state in verse 13? O, you who dwell in the gardens with companions, listening for your voice. Let me hear it. Who are the companions? The companions are single young men.

I don't have the time to prove that to you right now. There's some parallelism with the beginning of the song. Again, psalm one seven.

But you who dwell in the gardens, this is like, oh, there's the virtuous woman. I don't want the Solomonic vineyard. I don't want this Solomonic harem girl.

I want the excellent wife. And look at the emotion in verse 13. At the very end, he's like, let me hear it.

The song shapes the affections of our sons to want. Not the harem girl. Like what Solomon got.

Not the Esther of Esther, chapter two. Okay, you can wrestle with that on your own, all right? But not the beauty queen, but the Solomonic, virtuous woman, the excellent wife of which Solomon wrote about but never actually found. Let me hear it.

Young men pursue that woman. How do you do that right now when you're single? Well, what kind of a name do you have? How do you smell? If you want to find the excellent woman, what you probably need to focus on most anything right now is your relationship with God. Is the accountability with your father or the older men in the church that can guide and direct you in wisdom and holiness.

You need to focus on being a godly man now, and that's what can lead you to the excellent woman. You need to change your glasses. We work at a Bible college.

You have no idea how many times we talk to young men and just be like, what are you looking for? You've got the wrong pair of glasses on. And they value virtue and purity and holiness in a woman, and so on and so forth. Okay, make the list.

Go on and on. But it's really not valued because there's something still within them that's a song 811 desire. And it's still holding sway, pulling on their heartstrings where they want both the song 811 and the song 813 or song 812.

Like, you can't have both. It's going to be one or the other, and you'll never find the virtuous woman if you still want something to do with the harem girl of song 811. So, young woman, what do you want? What do you want? Do you want a guy who smells good, or do you want a guy whom all the other girls want? Young man, what do you want? Do you want the beauty queen that all the other guys are pining over, or do you want the virtuous woman who's going to be faithful to you and to love you the way that God designed? What do you want? You got to figure that out.

The song of songs, it's got a message. Not just for our married couples. It's definitely there.

And hopefully some of the married couples were able to kind of see where it connects to their lives and were admonished exhorted instructed by it. But as I look out at this audience, I think I have a lot of single people. It's like I pray that you were instructed concerning relationships from the song of songs.

Let's pray. Lord, thank you for this time that we're able to look at your word, give us wisdom, shape our affections to align with your desires. Lord, you, Lord God, are the king of kings and the Lord of lords.

That's the most important relationship that we could ever have. Help us to focus on that relationship. Help us to love you more than anything.

And as we love you first and foremost, above all things, all of these other loves, they come into place. They're properly ordered, cultivate the affections of our young people. May they love you most and may you give them the desires of their heart that they may love a spouse biblically and correctly.

In Jesus name. Amen.