Mike Bickle emphasizes the theme of delighting in the Lord through the Song of Solomon, illustrating that spiritual pleasure and enjoyment of God are foundational truths often overlooked by believers. He explains that even immature believers can experience God's delight and that this understanding can transform prayer from a duty into a joyful interaction. Bickle highlights the importance of recognizing God's pleasure in us, which empowers us to pursue a deeper relationship with Him, ultimately leading to spiritual growth. He encourages believers to engage with God's heart and to seek the superior pleasures found in their relationship with Him, rather than settling for inferior pleasures of the world.

Amen. Well tonight I want to take a theme in the Song of Solomon of delighting in the Lord. So we can use the term enjoying God or spiritual pleasure. This is a very glorious truth. It's a very foundational truth that many believers actually are not grounded in. They don't have a right view as to the pleasure that God wants to give them spiritually in their encounter with the Lord. They have wrong ideas about pleasure. This is a glorious truth and a very very significant one as well. Well in chapter 1 and 2 the bride makes these bold and powerful declarations about her relationship with the Lord. Now it's important to know that in the 8th chapter love song of the Song of Solomon it's her journey. There's a progression that she's walking from sincere yet immature to she grows into deep mature partnership with the Lord throughout the 8 chapters. So it's significant that these declarations about her enjoyment of God and her revelation of God's enjoyment of her are made in chapter 1 and chapter 2 at the beginning of the journey. Now there's two points I want to make about that. That a immature believer can experience this. This isn't something for the profoundly mature. This is for everyone. The assurance that God enjoys them and that the beginning of delighting and enjoying their relationship with the Lord. It's not just duty. It's not just gritting our teeth and refusing to yield to sin or gritting our teeth and we're going to serve God in the most difficult way. We're going to do it. But it's actually a relationship that's rooted in enjoyment. And it's not only accessible to a immature believer, chapter 1 and chapter 2, it's foundational meaning. This was the area that shifted my spiritual life some years ago. I didn't know anything about Solomon. But when I began to enjoy the Lord and enjoy Him enjoying me, that shifted my whole spiritual life when I was in my 20s. The idea that He was smiling when I was relating to Him, even in my brokenness and my sinfulness and my weakness, I felt His smile and His delight in me. And what that does is that sets the context for me to enjoy conversation with Him. So prayer went from a rigorous kind of dutiful thing that I was committed to do to I actually enjoyed it. It's the subject of delighting, the subject of spiritual pleasure. Well in chapter 2, verse 3, she makes this very strong but significant confession, meaning a declaration of her experience. I sat down in His shade with great delight. Again, in the context of the song, she's still in the early days of her spiritual journey. She's not very mature yet. But she was experiencing great delight. Now the enemies come along and told people that their spiritual life is meant to be always at a distance, always hoping for a breakthrough, committed no matter what. And that is true. We are committed no matter what. But they don't have any sense of expectation or confidence that they actually will enjoy the Lord. Enjoying the Lord is something that's always in the future, never in the present. They're longing, they're aching, they have pain, but they don't ever enjoy Him. And I'll say this, that a believer that cannot say, I sat down in His shade, at least with the word with delight, maybe not great delight, they won't mature deeply in the things of God or certainly not very quickly. This was the watershed issue in my early days. Beginning to delight in encountering and talking to the Lord. I don't mean encounter like a powerful, you know, angelic visitation encounter. Everybody would appreciate that. I'm talking about the little interactions with the Lord. Look at chapter 1 verse 2. She began to declare, your love is better than the wine of this world. In other words, the natural pleasures and even the natural privileges of this world, interacting with you actually does more for my heart than those natural privileges and pleasures. This is not a faith statement. This wasn't a statement of experience. She goes, I might never have guessed it, but it's true. Interacting with your heart is actually better than the other good things that are happening in my life, as well as the temptations of the culture. Because the wine of this world isn't all only the temptation, it's even the positive blessings happening in her life. She goes, no, interacting with you actually has more impact on me than those things do. Then in verse 16 of chapter 1, she declares in this poetic language of love to the king, you are handsome, or the king is beautiful, your beauty. Then she calls him my beloved. Then she says, yes, you are pleasant. And the word I would encourage you to interchange, you are delightful. Jesus, you're not just powerful, you're delightful. The Holy Spirit wants to reveal how delightful Jesus is. Not only how powerful, how wise, how consistent, but the fact that he's pleasant or delightful. The Christian life is a glorious discovery, an ongoing discovery. The Christian life is an ongoing journey of discovering the delightfulness of the king. Again, more than his power, more than his wisdom, more than his sovereignty, those for sure, his delightfulness. But it's also discovering the pleasure, even in our immaturity, of interacting with his heart. And when the light goes on, in our understanding, and he is delightful, and we do like the conversation with him, it puts us on the fast track of spiritual growth. Doesn't mean you'll mature overnight, but you're on a trajectory of increase of your spiritual life. These are not just kind of casual ideas. These are foundational ideas to our spiritual life. And I so appreciate them being in the first two chapters of the maiden or the bride's journey in her early days. I want to say it again. You will not mature as deeply or as quickly without this paradigm, this perspective of the Lord. Paragraph B, David, he understood that God delighted in him. He said that in Psalm 18, verse 19. He goes, the Lord delivered me because he delighted in me. David said that after a season of compromise, and he had repented when he could have been negotiating. Oh Lord, if you'll forgive me one more time, I promise I'll never do it. But he said, Psalm 18, verse 19, Lord, the reason you delivered me because you actually delighted in me. And then later David writes, delight in the Lord. The reason David called us to delight in God, because he knew God delighted in him, even in his weakness. Well, Isaiah chapter 62, verse 4, the famous declaration, God says, in that day you will be called Hephzibah. The Lord delights in you. One of the prophetic declarations over the people of God, God wants to declare, I delight in you. And this will set you on an entirely different journey. If like David, you can receive those words. Because the enemy will resist that at every, at every step. The enemy does not want you to buy into the fact he delights in you, until you deserve it somehow, which you never will. He wants to keep you in shame, condemnation, confusion, and all kinds of anxiety about your relationship with him. David said, I challenge you, Psalm 37, delight in him. Make it a goal in your life. You're going to go down that journey of understanding that he delights in you. And doing the things in your spiritual life, they're very simple. Just interacting with him and according to the word and talking to him about his delightfulness. Paragraph C, there's nothing more pleasurable. There's, God has given, is the author of many pleasures. And the devil counterfeits many pleasures. But God's the actual author of the pleasures. But I'll tell you this, there is nothing more pleasurable to the human experience than when God reveals God to the human spirit. When God, the Holy Spirit, I'm talking about just subtle, small impressions. We're reading the word. We're not always reading the word when it happens, but when a little moment of inspiration or God the Holy Spirit is revealing God the Father and God the Son and their beauty, their power, their delightfulness, their kindness. There is nothing more pleasurable to the human experience than when God reveals God to the human spirit. The reason that is so important to buy into, because this is part of the pathway of delighting in the Lord, is putting ourself in a situation where we're interacting with the truth about God's heart. We're interacting with it regularly, not one here, one there, at a conference, at a seminar, but it's a part of our everyday life. Of course around here, because this is one of the core messages, people hear it all the time, but knowing how to echo what I just said is not the same thing as being determined you're going to interact with his heart according to the delightfulness the reward of God reveals about him. Many believers, they know technically there's nothing more pleasurable and actually nothing more powerful than when God reveals God to the human heart, but they still don't prioritize it in their schedules and in their lifestyle. They believe it technically, but it doesn't enter into the actual way they spend time in the language they speak to God, because in my early days, I began to buy into this. Now certainly I could have done it more. I'm not making myself an example. I'm just giving a testimony. In my early days in my 20s, I go, God I'm buying into the fact that you are beautiful, you are delightful, you like me, and I'm going to fill my mind and my vocabulary with you, my conversation around these subjects, and they did not, I did not naturally gravitate to them. Meaning when I would say them to the Lord, these ideas, it's kind of like they repelled off of me. I still felt condemned and dull and guilty, but I kept talking to the Lord. Wherever something about God's heart was made clear in the scripture, his delightfulness, his kindness, his tenderness, the way he felt about me, I would stop and thank him for it. I wouldn't just underline it, move on and say stop. I go, Jesus, you delight in me. Thank you. I would pause. I would linger there. Then I'd go to the next response. I would say, Holy Spirit, show me more about this. Then I'd go back and say, Jesus, thank you that you're gracious, that you plan good things for me. Just whatever Bible verse I was reading, I would interact. I'd get it into my language with God, and I made sure I had time in my weekly routine to where I could interact with God that way, whether I felt it or not, and over time, I begin to feel it more and more, and I begin to say, this is amazing. I'm delighting in him. This is like really happening, because I remember when I was about 18 and 19 at the university, I was trying to grow in prayer. I was leading a university Bible study, so I was really involved in the work of investing in others and in the kingdom and trying to disciple some young men. I was a young man myself, 18, 19, but I got a couple other freshmen at the university, and they were new believers. As I've told the story many times, I hated prayer. I didn't like Bible study at all. The Bible was so confusing. Prayer was bad. The worst of all was fasting. The only thing I really liked was meetings. I liked meetings, particularly if they had good music and cute people. Anyway, go on to paragraph C. No, I liked meetings, but I didn't like talking to God, so it just kind of repelled off me. I'd read the Bible, confusing. Pray, boring, dull, but I had this idea, and of course it came from the Lord. These things are really true about His heart, the way He felt about me, but if I would talk to Him about Him, about them, that's a way of delighting in the Lord. I would actually thank Him for those truths, one by one. He loves me. He has good plans for me. He forgives me. He provides for me. Whatever statement about the way He acts towards me and feels, I would say, thank you. Then I'd ask the Holy Spirit to show me more, and that is how we practically delight in the Lord, actually, and over time I remember when it began to dawn on me. I actually like this. I go, this is a miracle. Mike Bickle likes prayer a little bit. Oh my gosh, this could get amazing, because I thought I would be the only guy it would never work for, but I approached it without having any great teachers to teach me how, just simply thanking Jesus for those things in His heart. Whatever showed up in the Bible, I just read the Bible systematically, read it through, and ask the Holy Spirit to show me more, and I would just journal little thoughts that came to me, and little by little I began to like really like it. Oh, I was so happy. When it dawned on me, I could actually like talking to God. This is like a miracle, and the Bible would be interesting to me, and not just boring. I look back about 40 years later, and I go, oh Lord, that was the turning point right there. I didn't know it was even in Song of Solomon, but it's not an accident. This reality is in the early part of her life, because she never would have matured without it. I like what John Piper says. God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. God is most glorified in us because we're more responsive. When we are satisfied in Him, our heart opens in many other ways, and many implications to this reality. Roman numeral two, because we're talking about delighting in the Lord, the great delight of interacting with Him. I sat under his tree with great delight, under his shade with great delight. Let's look at the subject of what I call the superior pleasures of the gospel. Again, paragraph A, God is the author of pleasure. He created us to enjoy physical pleasure. Now the enemy, he perverts it. He counterfeits it, but the original physical pleasures were created and thought up by God. God thought of them, not the devil. The devil perverted them, but God thought of them. Physical pleasure was God's idea. That's what kind of person He is. That's what kind of personality He has. He came up with that idea. Isn't that amazing? That's our leader forever. He was really into that. He liked physical pleasure. That's why he built it into the human design. There's mental pleasures. There's emotional pleasures. And again, there's spiritual pleasures. Since our longing for pleasure is part of our creative design, we have to be satisfied or we're going to be broken. We cannot repent away our longing for pleasure. We need to pursue it the right direction. And the spiritual pleasures are the most powerful and dominant. They are the most elusive on the front end, but they are the most prevailing and powerful once they begin to unfold in our own individual lives. Paragraph C, I refer to the superior pleasures of the gospel. They include the beauty of Jesus. I mean His beauty. The way that He loves. The way that He thinks. The way that He speaks. When we find little phrases in the Word of God, just phrases that give us even just small insights into how He is. Those are all part of the beauty of Jesus. Isaiah prophesied, chapter 33, your eyes will see the beauty of the King. The King and His beauty. That's a prophecy for the generation the Lord returns. Your eyes will see the beauty of the King. Of course, that's our topic we're going to look at a little bit more next week. But the pleasure of the gospel is rooted in the beauty of Jesus. How He thinks. How He talks. The way He is. But also the beauty and the glory that He's given the redeemed. We're the ones that the way He has set up the relationship. The way we know Him. We love Him. We reign with Him. We partner with Him. All of that is part of the beauty of God. Part of the pleasures. When we understand these, and we don't just underline them in our Bible, but they get into our language when we talk to God. We say these phrases to Him and thank Him for them and think on them. Ask the Holy Spirit for insight. Paragraph D. All human beings have a longing for pleasure. Song of Solomon is highlighting this in chapter 1 and chapter 1 and 2. We have a longing for fascination. The human spirit was created. The human experience was designed by God that we long for fascination. We want to be awestruck. That's what the secular entertainment industries picked up on. Human beings want to be awestruck. They want to be filled with wonder. And the Holy Spirit says, I have more knowledge about that man. I know everything about him. And I will guide you to him if it's a priority in your life. It's not just giving it time. Because a lot of believers will give the Lord time. But it's refusing the enemy's lies. When the enemy lies with condemnation and shame and hopelessness and despair, we say, no. No, that's not who He is. That's not who I am. That's not of my inheritance. This is who I am to Him. This is what He says. This is the confession of my mouth before Him. I'm not just giving in to darkness, dullness, depression, and condemnation. It's not just taking more time with the Lord. That's a part of it as well. But it's actually what you do in that time with the Lord. All human beings long for pleasure and fascination. Because of God's creative design. He simply made us that way. We can't repent of it and get free of it. We only, we have to satisfy it. The understanding of these two longings is foundational to the pursuit of holiness. Again, that's why these two are in the early part of the book. Of course, they show up throughout the book as well. But they're emphasized in the early part. I want to mention two books that talk about the logic of human pleasure under God's design and leadership. One of my dear friends, Sam Storms, wrote a book, you can get it on the internet, called Pleasures Forevermore. Sam Storms. He's a brilliant Bible teacher. He studied the subject of God's pleasure in people. And it's a tremendous logical presentation of why pleasure, the pursuit of pleasure in God, is radically important. Though many believers think it's something they're supposed to repent of instead of something they're supposed to pursue. Pleasures Forevermore by Sam Storms. And the other one, Desiring God by John Piper. Desiring God. These two books, they move in the same direction, though they have a lot of differences. I mean a lot of, cover different areas. But they develop the logic of why pleasure in God is critical and not just casual. Paragraph E. The call to holiness is a call to the superior pleasure of being fascinated by the beauty of Jesus. Meaning the call to holiness isn't about gritting our teeth and making sure we don't yield to bad things. Now we do need to repent. And sometimes we need to grit our teeth. Sometimes we need to have this, I mean, fierce resolve. But that won't hold up over time. If all that we have is a resolve to not yield, we will yield over time. We have to have something higher than the inferior pleasures of sin. We have to have a superior pleasure that we're experiencing even a little bit. And it's not always profound, but a little bit of this will go a long way. Paragraph F. John 16 verse 13 says, Jesus speaking, the Holy Spirit will guide you to truth. Then verse 14, He says, the Holy Spirit will take what is mine, He'll give it to you. The Holy Spirit has been given to escort us into the truth that, I call it the great treasure hunt of life, into the vast treasury of the beauty of Jesus. The Holy Spirit says, I'll take you on the journey if you want to go on it. But it's gonna take some time. You gotta make time for me. Of course many of you have done that. But it's more than that. It's the way we interact with Him when we have time. And again, the enemy's biggest, most successful tactic, accusation, unbelief, dullness, shame, accusation, condemnation. It's all the same, all the same kind of root things. And we have to resist them and say what God says about His heart and say what God says about our hearts before Him. Top of page 2. Where does pleasure originate? Where does pleasure come from? Of course you already know. God is the author of pleasure. We made that statement. David describes God's leadership. He also describes God's heart as being full of joy and full of pleasure. That's a, that's a radical idea. David, I call him a theologian of God's emotions, a theologian of God's heart. This was a kind of a watershed breakthrough. David says, I want to tell you, I know by the Holy Spirit that in God's presence around His throne, His throne is the epicenter of joy for the whole created order. There is more joy near the throne of God than any other place. And don't reduce joy to just giddiness. I'm not, I don't mean giddiness. That's not what I mean. I mean something profoundly deeper and more pervasive. Because some people have joy and they think of you know that five minutes of that one worship service and everybody did this and that. That is kind of joy. There's joy in it. But don't limit it to that. That's not what I mean. There's something, it's a deep reality that involves some fun moments. But far beyond that. Far beyond that. The throne of God, God's presence is the epicenter of it. And at the right hand of God, right at the throne, that's the source. It's God Himself of pleasure forever. For pleasure. A lot of people are raised up believing all pleasures of the devil. And they try to live a pleasure-free life. Now there's sinful pleasures, there's the counterfeit. The perversion of God's pleasures. But they try to live a pleasure-free life and they end up, they can't move forward in God because we were created to discover He's pleasant and delightful. And that He delights in us and we're created to go on a journey of delighting in Him. And delight and pleasure and great delight is core to our foundation and future in our spiritual life. Look what David went on to say in 1 Chronicles 16. Honor and majesty are before God. Before His throne. Gladness. Strength and gladness are in His place. So God has honor. They're worshiping Him as the worthy one. He has majesty. This majestic beauty about His presence and personhood. There's strength. Oh so much power. But David said not only majestic beauty and power and strength. He has gladness. From Him proceeds gladness. And again the bride in the early journey of the song is learning this. Our God is a happy God. And He's called us to a happy holiness. Again I don't mean giddy. But our God's a happy God. He has delight. He's smiling when He's relating to us. Some people think when God relates to us He's either mad or sad. Like when He relates to me they think in their individual life He's mad at me. I'm in trouble. Or He's not mad but He's grieving. He's just sad all the time when I relate to Him. And He goes well here we go again. Okay I'll cover you again. Beloved I got good news for you. The throne of God. The epicenter. Gladness. Pleasure. Joy. Comes out of His being. He's the author of it. He's the source of it. And He wants it in our relationship with Him. It's a very different perspective than some people are raised with in their Christian traditions. Paragraph B. David went on to say, I mean David he really got a hold of this. Subject to delight and gladness and pleasure in God. He said in verse 8, I encourage you to pray this for your life. I remember when I put this on my prayer list for my heart. David prayed he said Lord you give them drink from the river of your pleasures. He's using poetic language and he's talking about interacting with God's heart. He goes God interacting with your heart is to drink from the river of your pleasure. Your beauty. Your kindness. Your delightfulness. The way you talk to us. The way you interact with us. The way you plan our future. The way you want to be with us. The way you've qualified us. By the Spirit of glory to reign with you. To be your eternal companion. Oh God that just touches my heart. David would say Lord you cause them to drink from the river of your pleasure. I encourage you to put your name on that. This verse. Make it a prayer request for you. David recognized the power of spiritual pleasure. He grasped it. He recognized how important it was. Paragraph E. Our longing for this pleasure is only partially satisfied in this age. But a little bit of this will go a long way. Don't sell out to a life of standing at a distance. Hoping one day but never ever getting a breakthrough at the heart level of enjoying God. Yes the fullness of this is in the age to come. But the part that's ours in this age is so substantial. And this love song of Song of Solomon. Of course with the theology of David in the book of Psalms they go together. Because Solomon was David's son. It is profound how it shifts our perspective or our paradigm. I use the word paradigm perspective interchangeably. Paragraph G. This is now talking about holiness. We are liberated from the inferior pleasure of sin by the superior pleasure of the beauty of Jesus. Again when I mean his beauty I don't mean just that his appearance is beautiful. It is. His appearance is stunning. Majesty. Awesome. Awe-striking. Eyes of fire. Face like the sun. Tenderness and power and beauty and majesty. I mean in his face. In his being. In his presentation. In his appearance. John who knew him best. John the beloved apostle fell like a dead man before Jesus when he appeared in his splendor before him in Revelation 1. So when I mean the beauty of Jesus I don't mean just his appearance. I mean the way he thinks. The way he feels. The way he relates to us. What he says about our future with him. About our present with him. The present is. When we experience the superior pleasure of that. That equips us to resist the inferior pleasure of sin. But if we don't have the superior pleasure. I mean a little bit of it. I don't mean you got to be so deep in it. I mean a little bit of this will equip your heart to resist the inferior pleasures of sin. And this will equip us when we're training young believers as well. When I. Helping a young believer. I want them to buy into this. I want them to get this concept. Because a lot of believers they get the assurance of heaven. They grit their teeth unsuccessfully in resisting a lot of temptations. And they try to do some sacrificial work and hang on to heaven. And there's elements of goodness in that. Some of that. But it's not enough. Paragraph H. John 1 verse 5. The light shines in the darkness. And the darkness has not overcome it. The light overcomes the darkness. Here's what I mean by this principle. The best way to overcome darkness is to shine the light. I mean you. The room is dark. You don't open the window and try to get a bucket full of darkness and pour it out the window. You turn the light switch on. Light overpowers darkness every time. A lot of people they're battle against lust or addiction. They're trying to put all their effort on driving the darkness out. And they don't put much effort on growing in light. And I encourage them focus on growing in the light. And that superior pleasure even the introduction of it will equip their heart to say no to many other things that they were powerless to say no to. So instead of just kind of facing down lust or anger or bitterness like you know staring it down. I'm not yielding. I'm not yielding. No. No. And then anger and lust and bitterness or covetousness it keeps coming. No. No. No. I'm not yielding. I'm not yielding. The Lord taps us on the shoulder and says turn your attention this way. Come after the beauty of Christ Jesus. Then as you're going after it turn around and say no to the temptation while you're pursuing the light. That approach will yield fruitfulness in our spiritual lives. Top of page three. Now let's go down to bottom of page two. Let's I just want to I saw this paragraph J this John Piper quote again. It's a different one. Sin is what we do when our hearts are not satisfied in God. And I don't know that we in this age we get fully satisfied to where it can't increase. I don't think that's how it really works. But we can get substantially satisfied. But there's always an element where there's a groan. There's always an element where we need more. But the bit that we get the measure we get is substantial in terms of shifting our heart. Sin is not nearly as attractive when we're on the pathway of growing in satisfaction. I don't mean totally satisfied. We're on the pathway of delighting in Him. Sin is not nearly so powerful at the heart level. Again whether it's immorality, whether it's bitterness, whether it's anger, whether it's any other kind of compulsive addicting behavior that grips our heart. Paragraph K. The call to enjoy God. We think of holiness as don't do bad things. The call to holiness. The battle is the battle for holiness is the battle to be preoccupied with the right things. If we're preoccupied I don't mean again totally where there's no room for darkness or failure. I mean but our main preoccupation is the beauty of that man. And we have we have a vision for it. We're going to grow in it. We know how to grow in it. Again it's pretty simple. We're going to read the Bible where it tells us parts about His heart and His beauty and His ways. We stop and say thank you. Holy Spirit show us more. Just kind of muse around that and just journal little thoughts here and there and go over those passages over and over. And you will grow in the revelation of His beautiness. I mean of His delightfulness and His beauty. The way forward in holiness is being preoccupied with the right thing. And this is overlooked by many sincere believers. I mean they love Jesus but they're not preoccupied. Their approach is not to grow in the light. Their approach is to resist the darkness and get the depression to leave. Yeah we want the depression to leave but go after the light. And that's what the song is telling us. It's giving us this prominent place of delightfulness and pleasure. It must have a rightful and even prominent place in our spiritual life. In our mindset of what we're aiming at. What we're spending time to grow in. The song reveals this to us as do many other passages in the Old and New Testament. Top of page three. She has this kind of epiphany in chapter 1 verse 15 and 16. She sees how the Lord views her. Beloved the reason we delight in Him in verse 16 because we know He delights in us which is verse 15. In verse 15 you can read the notes on your own. She begins little by little to buy in the fact. He says you're beautiful and I really like you. She's going well Lord I'm still young. My spiritual life I got unsettled issues in my life. Verse 15 the Lord says you're beautiful to me. I look at you through the lens of grace and I like you a lot. You are my beloved. That was the subject we looked at last week. We get this foundation. We get this confession. We get in this pathway when the devil tells us opposite we're just not going to cap out on the lies of shame and accusation and guilt and just wallowing in the darkness and this is how it is with me. No. He says I am beautiful in His eyes. He looks at me through the lens of the cross in grace and I am the one He loves. He has affection. That's verse 15. Then paragraph B verse 16. Then she now is equipped to say you're beautiful. I see your beauty. Then this love poem the word is handsome but the phrase I want you to see yes you are pleasant or the phrase would be you are delightful. Beloved Jesus is indescribably delightful. Not just powerful but delightful but powerful really powerful. Paragraph Roman number 5. Go a few verses past chapter 1 verse 16. We find ourselves in chapter 2 verse 3 to 5 and in chapter 2 verse 3 to 5 she elaborates. She develops what was stated in chapter 1 verse 16. You're delightful Jesus. The King is delightful. Now she unpacks it a couple verses later chapter 2 verse 3 to 5. This is one of the great passages in the Bible. There are some other ones not in Song of Solomon where she is just declaring what she is viewing. Again she still is in her inner mature years. She is not a mature apostle. She is still in the early days and she is going to stumble some in the book. As a matter of fact in chapter 2 she stumbles a little bit later but this doesn't invalidate this foundation that is being built in her life. Again if you know the journey of the song and the whole progression of what is happening each chapter she is maturing and gaining more ground in her spiritual life. Look what she says about the King. Verse 3. Like an apple tree among the trees so my beloved the King the one I love. He is like that among all of the men all the human race. There is none like him. He is like the unique apple tree the refreshing one. He has a way about him that refreshes me because of who he is. There is none like him among all the trees of the forest among all those of the sons of men. In verse 5 it is clear that the apple is a reference to his refreshing nature. She said I sat down in his shade. This is the verse we started this session with. With this kind of explosive declaration. I sat down in his shade with great delight. It is this idea that delight is meant to be part of the relationship. It is the idea that we are meant to enjoy him enjoying us. We are meant to. The great delight is our inheritance not just in the age to come but to delight in him is our inheritance at this age. Verse 4. He brought me to the banqueting table. His leadership over me. His banner. The idea of banner and leadership you could use it interchangeably. I have written a little bit on that. You can look that on your own. On the notes. I won't go over it. His banner. His leadership over my life. I can see it now. What I thought was the Lord abandoning me or the Lord forgetting me I see now. The banner over His leadership in my life. He is always working from love and He is always working for love. Love is His motive He is working from and love is His goal. He is producing it in me. Beloved when the enemy comes to you and says God has forgotten you. Nothing is working right. You can use the New Testament phrase God works all things together for good or you can use an Old Testament phrase His banner over me comes from love. He is motivated by love and His goal is He is producing love in me. Things are easier. I don't necessarily have more money right now. I don't necessarily have more comfort and more honor in the eyes of men but I know one thing I am growing in love. I am experiencing His love and my life is being fulfilled. I am focused on love for Him and for others and receiving from Him. The sum impact of His leadership over my life is love. I see it. Then in verse five she cries out sustain me. Refresh me. I want more of this. Refresh me with apples. In other words in the poem she has likened Him to an apple tree. I want the refreshing. I want more of this. It is like the rich get richer. The more you touch this the more you want of it. The less you touch it the more satisfied you are without it. I know believers are like I am doing okay. I am going to heaven when I die and things are not so bad. I go vision way too low. Way too low. I want to be sustained. I want to be refreshed. I want this because this enjoyment in the Lord we touch it for moments. Then we got to renew it and we grow in it. Sometimes it is three steps forward, two steps back, three steps forward but we are gaining ground over the months and years. Again many believers because they don't touch this they are very content to live without it. But like David said in Psalm 34 verse 8, taste and see the Lord is good. If you taste this and you see there is a greater inheritance in your walk with God. There is a greater possibility. There is a greater vision of what God wants with you. You taste and you see a bigger possibility. A bigger vision of how you can interact with Him. There is more. David said taste and see. You taste a little bit your vision, your appetite increases. The rich get richer. Then you taste more. Then you want more. Then you taste more and you want more. And you are not content without more. You break into the verse 5 prayer. Sustain me. Refresh me. I want this over and over and over again. Let's go to the top of page 4. She says, sustain me, refresh me. I am lovesick. She is lovesick. Now again this is the poetic language of a love song. What it means in everyday practical spiritual life. It doesn't have sexual connotations to it. But she is experiencing the joy of feeling His delight in her. Without her earning it. Because beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. Because of who He is in His redemption He sees beauty in you that you don't see. I love the phrase I tell the Lord. I want to just enjoy you enjoying me. And I will just go with it. I don't want to argue about it. I don't want to present my case with the devil why I am disqualified for you to enjoy me. I am not joining his team in the name of humility. I am going to enjoy you enjoying me. That's my story and I am sticking with it. It is written there it is. When the devil comes with a different story you say no. Well she is sick with love. She is preoccupied with this interchange. I mean the interchange of his heart. She wants more. What he thinks and how she interacts with him is preeminent in her mind. It is not secondary. She is sick with love. She goes I want the first commandment first. I want it. There is nothing I want more than this. I have seen some people take the phrase lovesick and they will do some funny things with it that are not really related to them and Jesus. I have seen people make some weird applications but what it really means is she is sick with love saying I must have more of this interchange with your heart. I want to see more. I want to feel more. I want to give more. I am preoccupied with the first commandment being first. I am not okay with it being second because it is so delightful yes you are worthy of my love but it is delightful. It is the way I am created. I was created for love. I was created by you for love. It is the only way it works and it is so delightful to get in this way. I break it down a little bit. It is the spiritual pleasure of just taking the word and speaking it back to him and feeling just moments of the Spirit's presence. I don't mean all day every day. Philippians 3 verse 8. Paul talked. He described what the Old Testament this phrase lovesick. He says it very different but it is the same idea. It is the same reality. He goes I will lose everything for the sake of the excellency the beauty of the knowledge of that man's heart. The excellency of who he is. What he does. It is so excellent. I will remove anything that hinders that flow in my life. That is lovesick from the Song of Solomon language. He goes I would suffer the loss of all things. He stepped out of his career. It is not bad to have a career. I am not anti-career. I think careers are good. But Paul had a unique apostolic calling from his mother's womb that was bigger than his career. He didn't know anything about it until he met the Lord. He says I will lay aside my prestigious position and career. I want to be with you where you are. Do what you do. Say what you say Lord. Somebody might say Paul you are amazing. Your dedication is amazing. He goes amazing is rubbish. Don't compare what I gave him with who he is and what he gave me. Don't compare it. It is rubbish. No false humility. What I gave him does not compare to what that man fully God gave me and the way he longs for me. It is uncomparable. It is rubbish. That is the language of lovesickness. I have said to the Lord over the years. I am having a worship team come up. I said Lord let me see what Paul saw and I could be dedicated in the way he was. I can't do what he did. We all have different callings. But I go let me see what he saw and I can respond like he responded. The key to Paul's response of dedication was that he saw the excellencies. He saw the beauty of the man. The man was fully God, fully man. Delightful. Pleasant. Paul could say I sat under his shade with great delight. I got to have more. Sustain me. Refresh me. I want to grow in this. I am lovesick. Romans 6. It is not only that he is pleasant. I love this phrase in chapter 3 verse 11. See the king on the day of his wedding. The day of the gladness of his heart. Beloved the king. And the love song is King Solomon and the spiritual application is King Jesus. The day of his wedding. We are talking about the marriage supper of the Lamb. Is the day of the gladness of his heart. And the gladness of the bride. The response of gladness flows from the revelation of his gladness. He is glad about marrying her. I go Lord I wouldn't be that glad about marrying me. I just wouldn't. But he goes I am. I am glad that you are my eternal companion collectively in the bride. I am glad about that coming to full light on that day. I am glad about it. Lord do the math. You did Genesis 1. I messed up a lot of times. How is this going to work? See the king on the day of his wedding. The day of the gladness of his heart. He is glad that you said yes. That is called the day of the gladness of his heart. When your union with him comes to full light. Beloved I don't want to wait until then to start getting into the flow of this. It is worth it now. It is worth it now. Well amen and amen. We are going to stand before the Lord. Lord I want to be lovesick in that sense. The excellency of who you are. I want a vision for it. I want more of it. I am not content just to be anointed and have a ministry. I want you. I want to interact with you. It is my inheritance. I want to invite people to come forward that you are saying in your heart. I want to set my life on this trajectory. I want to go after this. I mean we are going to do all the service and all the connecting with people. All that stuff. It will flow out of this. But I am going to have a vision. I am going to reestablish the vision of the delightfulness of interacting with this man. The Lord is saying I want to establish you in that in a new way. King David said all the days of my life I want to gaze on his beauty. He said all my days. David had some bad sinful days. But he kept signing back up, signing back up, signing back up, signing back up. Beloved today is the day to sign back up.