Sermon Tone Analysis

*Song of Songs 4-8*

* *

*Yahweh-ignited love grows progressively stronger in intimacy and delight!*

 

*/Before Scripture reading:  /*This morning we continue our series on the Song of Songs.

Before I continue with a more detailed explanation of the second part of the book, I would like to spend some time this morning providing a bird’s-eye view of what is to come.

*/Public Reading of Holy Scripture:  /*

       Song 4:1-7; 5:9-16; 8:1-7

       Ephesians 5

 

*/Beloved bride of the Lord Jesus Christ/*

Summer is a beautiful season.

The warmth of the sun.

The bright colours all around.

The long days and the sweet nights.

Sights and sounds and smells that only our summer senses know.

Time with family and friends.

Camping, fishing, traveling, swimming, boating--no school!

O yes, there are the burning hot days and the sleepless nights, too.

The flaring tempers, high fevers and sunstroke.

But there’s something about the summer that we all want to hold on to and keep.

Unending summer would be quite alright.

The Song of Songs is something like that.

It’s a book in the Bible where we don’t mind to be--and where we don’t mind to stay for a while.

There is an allure about it.

An indescribable and profound mystery lies here.

Beauty and strength and delight and joy.

There’s something here that we want to hold on to and never let go.

An /unending summer /in the Song of Song would be quite alright.

/ /

Our cameras work overtime in the summer.

We want a snapshot of summer that we can keep.

Pictures can’t tell the whole story, but they can give a snapshot that hints at a description of the whole.

When we look at the pictures or videos we’ve created, pretty soon we start thinking and talking and reminiscing about the whole thing.

/ /

And the Song of Songs is exactly that sort of snapshot.

The Song of Songs, though only one book in the Bible, gives us a snapshot of the whole.

The Bible is the revelation of God’s love for his people.

More specifically, the Bible is the revelation of the LORD God.

The LORD God, that is literally *Yahweh God, *for that is is his name.

The Bible is the revelation of the steadfast love of Yahweh God for his people, with whom he established his covenant of favour.

Now let me ask you a question about the Bible that is worth considering from time to time, and remembering.

How is the revelation of Yahweh God unfolded to us in the Bible?

All at once?

In one single book?

At one single moment in time?

In all its fullness and glory and beauty and power, right away?

 

I’m quite sure you know the answer.

That would be impossible.

The love of Yahweh God, says the apostle Paul, */is wide and long and high and deep./*

You cannot grasp it all at once.

You cannot learn the full proportions of the infinite love of God from a single book of the Bible.

You cannot fully experience and taste the love God in a mere moment in time.

Yahweh God took *centuries* to reveal his covenant love and mercy to his people.

At every stage, he demonstrated his love in increasing measure.

This is something that the Heidelberg Catechism captures beautifully in Lord’s Day 6, where we confess this about the gospel, the revelation of Yahweh:

It is that *“which God Himself first revealed in Paradise [to Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel].

Later He had it proclaimed by the patriarchs and prophets and foreshadowed by the sacrifices and other ceremonies of the law.

Finally, He had it fulfilled through His only Son.”*

* *

Remember what Paul says in Gal 4:  */“When the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.”/*

And in Ephesians 1:  */“He made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth under one head, even Christ.”/*

You see: the revelation of the love of God *needs time* to be unfolded and grasped and experienced by us, his beloved.

God even took his time to manifest the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the substance and focus and fulfillment and glory of the love of God.

 

*Now as the revelation of God’s love /unfolds/, our experience of that love /grows./*

As *God’s* *revelation* of his love becomes progressively clearer, and moves further along in its fulfillment, so *our experience* of his love grows progressively stronger in intimacy and delight.

We don’t get a full experience of God’s love all at once.

In fact, we wouldn’t be able to handle that.

God has chosen to make known to us the full width and length, height and depth of his love *over time.*

This is important for you and me to remember as we read and hear God’s Word from day to day and from Lord’s Day to Lord’s Day.

Christians sometimes fall into a feeling of despair about their lack of Scripture knowledge.

Christians think, and are even sometimes taught, that the true measure of a Christian is how much Scripture knowledge they have tucked away in their brains, and how often and quickly they are able to read through the Bible.

Don’t get me wrong.

It is very important for us to know our Bibles, and listen carefully to God’s Word, to read it daily, even to memorize parts of it.

Remember the prayer of Paul for the Philippians *(read Philip 1:9-11)*

 

But let us remember that true faith in Jesus Christ is not merely a matter of packing as much Scripture knowledge into our brains.

It is also, even *primarily*, a matter of *believing *and *accepting as true* all that God has revealed to us in his Word! (Lord’s Day 7)

The life of the true Christian, that is the life of true conversion, is not merely *knowing what God’s Word says.*

As we confess in Lord’s Day 33:  *“It is a heartfelt joy in God through Christ, and a love and delight /to live/ according to the will of God in all good works!*

That is the goal that we have in sight as we make our way through the Song of Songs.

To be filled with a *love and delight* in our God and in his Word!

To be filled with an ever-increasing zeal for Christ to be formed in us, as his Holy Spirit makes his dwelling in us!

And what will happen, then?

Well, we will be filled with an ever *greater *hunger and longing for the living God.

We will thirst *more and more* for his Word, and we will begin finding that we want it more and more and more!

That is beautifully portrayed for us here in the Song of Songs.

This is the song of a man and woman who are deeply in love with one another.

And the farther they get in this song of love for one another, the more intimate and delightful their song becomes.

As you read through the Song of Songs, there is a progression in tone and language from modesty to greater intimacy.

At first, the man and woman, although madly and unquestionably in love with one another, are shy with one another, and maintain a measured distance from one another.

But as their love grows, shyness gives way to boldness; their distance from one another turns into intimacy; and their hiding from one another their mutual desire and love evolves into a passionate *sharing* of that love and desire.

That’s because it is a song about how their love relationship is a *growing* one.

The more they get to know one another, the stronger their love grows, and the more they *want to get to know each other*.

And as their love grows stronger, so does their intimacy with one another, and their delight in one another.

And even with all their flaws and blemishes as weak and fallen sinners, they are *fully satisfied *with each other!

That is because these two are not just *any man and woman.*

And their love-relationship *is not just any love relationship.*

Their love is a *Yahweh-ignited love!*

Remember what we read in chapter 8 verse 6. *Read again, following the footnote.*

Let me read this verse to you as it is rendered in another translation: 

*/“Put me like a seal over your heart, /*

*/Like a seal on your arm./*

*/For love is as strong as death, /*

*/Jealousy is as severe as Sheol;/*

*/Its flashes are flashes of fire, /*

*/They very flame of the LORD/**/.”