Mike Bickle explores the profound love and cherishing heart of God as depicted in Song of Solomon chapter 4, emphasizing that even in our spiritual immaturity, God sees and affirms our budding virtues. He highlights how the Lord's discipline is rooted in His commitment to our relationship, and how our sincere desires to obey Him, despite our shortcomings, are beautiful in His sight. Bickle encourages believers to recognize that God's love is not contingent on our perfection but rather on our hearts' intentions, and that He delights in our journey towards maturity. The sermon culminates in the understanding that our relationship with God transforms us, as we respond to His love and call to deeper fellowship.

Amen. Well, we're gonna look at the whole chapter, so I'm gonna have to skip a few points and just kind of hover around a few and leave you to read the notes. We have the additional material. Normally with every session, this one we have 16 pages of additional material that's not on these notes, and the reason I give you that because I don't want to cover it in the sessions here, and for those that are really eager and they say, hey, I want to break this down a little bit more, I want to give you something to look at it if you want it. Well, it starts off, if you remember in the last session, Song of Solomon chapter 3, the the bride was being disciplined because she had drawn back from a place of obedience. Now the reason she drew back was because of fear, and the point we made over and over is that spiritual immaturity is not the same thing as rebellion, and the Lord loves us and actually enjoys us in our immaturity while He's disciplining us because there's commitment and zeal in His heart for the relationship, not because He's angry. It's very opposite because He has delight, and He's committed, and He's interested in the relationship. Well, the discipline happened in chapter 3, now we're in chapter 4, and in the natural interpretation, King Solomon is highlighting eight different characteristics of the Shulamite maiden who would become the bride, and we call her the maiden sometimes, the bride sometimes. I just use those interchangeably. King Solomon in the natural interpretation is highlighting eight features of her physical beauty. In the spiritual interpretation, those are symbolic of spiritual characteristics, and this is where I put a lot of material on the additional notes on the website that I don't want to go into tonight, and how we understand the spiritual application of these is the Bible interprets the Bible, number one, and number two, some of the features are just plain and simple agricultural terms, and we can guess what they mean. So we can't be a hundred percent sure, but I think that you can guess in a fairly accurate way as to what's being said spiritually, and as long as it's a biblical principle that is established in the New Testament, it's not a problem if you get the wrong, you know, if you think that the teeth and the neck, you get them mixed up, it doesn't really matter, as long as it leads you to obey the Lord in all the areas of your life. So in this season of discipline, the king is describing her beauty, even while her obedience was immature, that's the key point. He sees her sincere desire, and in the spiritual interpretation, remember she hasn't said yes yet fully, not fully, but she's wrestling, she wants to obey, and the Lord says to her, you are beautiful to me even in the process of rising up, facing your fears to obey me. Paragraph two, the Lord is affirming what I call budding virtues. These eight physical virtues in Song of Solomon's natural love song but eight spiritual virtues in the spiritual interpretation, these virtues were not mature, they were budding, but the Lord calls them forth and He affirms her because they're just even beginning. She doesn't mature for the next couple of chapters actually. Paragraph B, in chapter 4 verse 1 to 5, we see the cherishing heart of Jesus. We see His cherishing heart, and I love that phrase His cherishing heart. I find it in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 29, where it talks about Jesus, He cherishes the church. He nourishes and cherishes, He washes the church, but beloved the way He washes the church, you can read that passage more on your own, He washes us by the Word of God, but what part of the Word of God? The part of the Word of God that reveals how much He cherishes us. That's why I like to talk about the bridegroom God and our identity as the cherished bride. We feel His tender affirmation over us even in our immaturity as we're growing and maturing. Now God's cherishing heart is one of the prominent themes of this 8 chapter love song called the Song of Solomon. Paragraph C, the Lord transforms His people, He washes us by cherishing us. That's not the only way, but I believe that's the primary way. And the reason this is so important, because many believers don't have any paradigm, any perspective that He is cherishing them. They just, when they look up and they're thinking, oh no, am I in big trouble now? You know what? It's not gonna work. I might as well just dial down trying to be obedient and just acclimate to a carnal lifestyle, because it's never gonna work anyway. Many people give up the vision of going hard and wholehearted for God, because they just think it's not gonna work, so why try? And they don't know that the Lord's actually cherishing every step, every movement of their heart. He's going, oh my beloved, look at that, you're coming forth. And He affirms it. And this love song really highlights that, this spiritual interpretation of it. Paragraph C, He removes the stain of shame from our heart. There's shame that happens when we sin, because of our own fallenness. He wants to wash that away by saying, do you know how sufficient my blood is? And do you know how intense my heart is for you? Do you understand that there's no need for you to put yourself on probation for a few months to kind of prove that you love me? And it's the revelation of His love that removes the stain of shame away from our heart. Now I believe one of the most classic passages on God's discipline, and the way God motivates, the way Jesus motivates, is Revelation chapter 3. And you know it's the Laodicean church. They're compromising, they're spiritually passive. Verse 19, He tells them, He goes, I want you to repent. He goes, but as many as I love, I rebuke. He's chastening them, that means disciplining them. He's saying, I want you more zealous. I want you on fire for me, and I want you to repent. I mean, when someone rebukes you, disciplines you, tells you to get zealous, and tells you to repent, and the human says, you go, oh no, I'm in big trouble. And He goes in verse 20 and 21, He says, let me tell you why. Because I want to have dinner with you. I want to share a meal with you. I want you to come closer to me, and I'm beckoning you to repent. And because it's my desire to fellowship deeply with you, and to partner with you in a deeper way, He invites us to deeper partnership, and deeper fellowship with Himself. So deeper fellowship is what He's calling us to. And that's the way He's always motivating us. Though many of us, that's not how we feel motivated. We feel like He's rebuking us, because we're bad. And the truth is, He's rebuking us, because He wants deeper fellowship, and He wants to have dinner with us. He wants to open His heart to us, because He likes us so much. Top of page two. The devil assaults us with accusation. I mean, that's the age-old strategy. He's done it for thousands of years. He assaults us with accusation. He wants us to give up in despair. And I hear it all the time, well-meaning believers. They just, I just, you know, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. They want to give up in despair, because they feel accused. The Bible calls Him the accuser. And He's unrelenting. He never stops. And He'll even use your own thought process, processes to sting your heart, and to strike you. He wants you to feel like a hopeless hypocrite, because He knows if you feel accused, you won't be motivated to love. If you feel accused, you'll lose your motivation. Because people that are preoccupied with condemnation, people that are preoccupied with shame, it hinders their ability to walk after God. He wants you preoccupied with condemnation and failure. He wants that to be the main issue on your mind, not how He feels about you, and how He's beckoning you to come closer. Paragraph H. Somebody says, well, I want to tell the whole truth. Well, that's good. Because the whole truth about your life is so much more than what we've done wrong. The whole truth about you is not just what you've done wrong, it's how you're seeking to do right. That's the truth about you, too. Not just how much you came up short, but how sincere you were seriously wanting to obey Him in that area, and to follow through with love. Beloved, the good news is, paragraph H, our obedience begins when we sincerely set our heart. Our obedience doesn't begin only when it's fully mature. It actually begins when the seed is there. The plant begins when the seed goes in the ground, not when the fruit is full, comes to fullness. The plant actually begins when the seed is in the ground. Paragraph I. The whole message of grace, I mean part of it, is that Jesus relates to us according to what we long to be. What do you long to be? I mean, when you get quiet, what do you really want to be? Well, I want to do this in my ministry, and that's not what I'm asking you. What do you long to be? Oh, I want to be faithful to the Lord. I want my heart, I want to love purity. I don't, but I want to. I really want to. I want to love the Word. I don't love the Word right now. I want to. I want to be close to Him. Beloved, I have good news to you. Part of the grace message is that He relates to us according to what we long to do, to be, not just what we fail to do. It's a whole different picture of God, a whole different paradigm of God. He doesn't just relate to us according to what we fail to do. One of my favorite verses on this theme is right here, 1 Corinthians chapter 4. Paul gives them the shock of their life. I mean, the shock, it shocked them. He says, hold off on judging. He's talking in verse 5, in 1 Corinthians 4, about judging themselves, actually. Even about judging themselves, he goes, hold off, hold off. He goes, till the Lord comes. And he says two things are going to happen. He's going to bring to light the bad stuff. He's going to bring to light bad stuff that's not repented of, or bad stuff in the lives of unbelievers when they stand before Him, they'll be judged on the things they did. But he goes, that's not it. He's also going to reveal here it is, the counsels of the heart. Now you could put the word the motives of the heart. You could put another word, probably it's even better, the intention of the heart. What you're trying to do, the intention is probably better than motives. That's a good thing. Then, here's the shock of their life, when God reveals the intentions of your heart, everyone's praise will come from God. I can imagine them saying, praise? Don't you mean our rebuke will come from God? When all the secrets of our heart come out, won't we be in the biggest trouble imaginable? Paul goes, well no, actually, when all the secrets come out, the secret of how you're longing to obey Him will come out, and He will praise you. And the word praise, they're the ideas, He will give you affirmation. He will tell you how He feels about the way that you carried your heart. Paragraph J, He sees the seeds of character in us before the fullness of the fruit. My point is, He doesn't only enjoy the relationship once we're mature, He actually enjoys us each stage of the way when we're sincerely seeking to follow Him. We're sincere, but we're coming up short. He calls forth things that do not yet exist in their fullness. Like for instance, paragraph K, I love this analogy, I mean this illustration with Gideon. You read the story of Gideon in Judges chapter 6. The nation of Israel was being attacked by the enemy. Gideon was hiding in fear. The Midianite army, the neighbors were attacking, I mean this mighty army, they were outnumbered by this fierce army of the enemy, and Gideon's hiding. The angel appears, says, oh mighty man of valor. Gideon looks right, he looks left, he goes, who, me? He goes, yeah. Mighty man of valor, I'm hiding right now. The Lord saw in Gideon what Gideon could not see in himself. The Lord saw seeds of courage in a man that was not operating in the courage yet. Well, God named him according to what he would become, and he did become one of the great military leaders of Israel. But at that time, I mean his resume was bad, and he was trembling in fear, hiding. Lord, the angel visits, says, mighty man of valor, mighty woman of God, me? Are you kidding? I'm stuck on this, I'm stuck on that, I'm filled with fear, I'm consumed with myself, I got tons of shame. Mighty woman of God, arise, oh lover of God, you love me with all of your heart, I do. Well, your all is small, but it's still your all right now. You're like, really? Well, I thought he was talking to me that way. I would run to him, I wouldn't run from him. Paragraph L, Jesus calls Peter the rock, or the one who's reliable and stable. The rock meant, the idea meant, you're the reliable one, you're the stable one. He knew Peter would deny him to a little servant girl, but he said, you're the rock. When Peter denied him, he goes, I'm not the rock. He goes, yes you are, yes you really are. Well, how could you say I'm the rock? I denied you because I see the seeds of what's in your heart. You're gonna be okay. And actually, you'll read the notes, Peter stumbled again in a major way some years down the road as an anointed apostle. He fell into hypocrisy for a short season, and Paul rebuked him. But I tell you, he was still the rock. He was still the stable one from God's point of view. Jesus named him that with full knowledge. I have in paragraph M, I love God's editing process. He looked at Abraham, you know, Romans 4, it says, and Abraham did not waver. Well, when I read the Word of God, it looked like Abraham wavered a couple big times. I mean, some of the things Abraham did in my home, that's called wavering. He didn't waver? Paul, did you know the story of Abraham? I mean, did you skip that in your Hebrew class? No, I didn't, but God saw more than wavering. He saw a man that pressed in, and he constantly came back and took hold of. And the final summary is, he didn't waver. Whoa! If that's how you do it, that's how you look at life. Hey, I like this. I can do this. And this isn't, one guy will take this kind of teaching of grace, and they'll just, it will validate a life of compromise. That's not the examples I'm giving. These guys that God called this, and these women, they went on to press on to the Lord. This is the truth that enables us not to quit in despair in the early days, or the later days. Paragraph in, David's failures are so recorded. There's so many of his sins recorded. My guess is David has more individual sins. I've never, don't know for sure, but at a quick read, I think he probably had more individual sins than any one person that God cataloged and described in the Bible. Yet at the end of David's life, here it is in Acts chapter 13. This is a thousand years after David's died. Paul the Apostle is talking about David, and God's testimony a thousand years later was David did all the will of God. David did all the will of God. Here it goes again. Paul, did you not know the life of David or the life of Abraham? Paul might go, no, no, that's not the problem. I knew the life of David and the life of Abraham. I just knew the heart of God, and you didn't. David did all the will of God. I go, he did? Wow. Well if he did, this works then. I mean it's a thousand years later. God said he did the whole thing. He served my purpose in his generation. Top of page three. Well beloved, we're beautiful to God even in our weakness. I'm talking to sincere believers. Again, some people will take this to go validate. They'll just go live in immorality. They'll go live in this. They'll go live in that, and they'll say, hey, he likes me. What difference does it make? That's not the context I'm talking about. I'm talking about that he sees the cry of the heart of his people to get free of those sayings, to resist them, to come through them, to walk in full obedience. And as they're stumbling along the way, he enjoys the relationship. He doesn't enjoy the compromise, but he's saying, I see the cry. I see the cry of your heart. I see the longing for full obedience. I see that virtue in you. And he calls her beautiful. I mean chapter four is right after the discipline season of chapter three. He says you're beautiful. Wait, shouldn't he be calling her beautiful maybe in chapter eight? Not in chapter four. That's too early to call her beautiful. Well he called her beautiful back in chapter one, because each chapter she gets more and more mature, and she gets in deeper relationship with the Lord as this storyline unfolds throughout the book. Paragraph eight. The king, of course, in the spiritual interpretation is the Lord Himself, highlights eight traits. And again, they're physical traits to King Solomon in the natural love song, which is a valid way to read this book, by the way. But they're spiritual traits in the spiritual interpretation. And every one of these traits, they start off as budding virtues, as just a little bit as a seed, and they grow forth. And he calls them forth as beautiful. That's the point I'm making. Because he says you're beautiful, and he gives eight examples of her beauty in these, the spiritual interpretation. But again, she's not mature yet. These aren't, she's not beautiful yet. And he goes, yes she is. I see the cry of her heart. And again, on the additional notes, you can look more at those eight and see some of the interpretations. And again, you can, there's liberty to interpret some of these characteristics different ways. That's not the point. As long as they, as long as they validate New Testament principles, you're on safe ground. Roman numeral three. Well, now we've gone from verse, chapter four, verse one to five. Now we've gone to verse six. Look what she says in verse six. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee away, I will go my way to the mountain. What? I will go to the mountain. See, remember chapter two, he said, go to the mountain. She goes, no, I'm too afraid. Chapter three, she goes, I'm being disciplined. I'll go to the city. How about that? I'll go to the city, but not the mountain. He goes, no, I want you at the mountain. She is so touched by the affirmation of chapter four, verse one to five, that we just kind of breezed through. She goes, I'll go to the mountain. If this is how you see me, I know I can do this with you. I'll go to the mountain. I'll challenge the comfort zone. I will meet you in the place of full obedience. I'm not going to draw back anymore. What a statement. I will go to the mountain. Paragraph eight, the bride responded to the affirmations of her beauty in those eight different budding ways. She says, I'm gonna obey. I'm gonna do it. Now the rest of the book, chapter five, six, seven, eight, is walking out that full obedience, going to the mountain, which means that out of the comfort zone, fully obeying God, no more negotiating at all. I will do the hard, the difficult. I will do that which is mundane and out of the way, that I get no affirmation from anybody. I will obey you in secret. I will serve in secret in the little out-of-the-way place even. A lot of folks will serve as long as there's an audience. But will they serve ... I mean, like I think of our folks that do the ... in just our little world here, they do the shuttles and all those things. And I mean, I see them sometimes on that parking lot, and five below zero, and they're serving week after week. There's a whole core of them. And I go, why are you doing this? I've asked a few of them. Because that's ... we want to serve. I think that's pretty intense. Now again, there's a thousand examples in everyday life and at the marketplace, in the neighborhood that is not related to the church ministries. But I'm just talking about the out-of-the-way places. Well, just a quick review. Number one, remember back in chapter 2. I've already said it, but I'll say it again. Back in chapter 2, to get a review of how significant this is when she says, I will go to the mountain. You've got to ... those that are new with us tonight, you've got to know the storyline. Because back in chapter 2, verse 8, he was leaping on the mountains. That was new. She'd never seen him leap on mountains. Verse 10, he says, rise up and come on the mountains with me. Verse 17, she goes, no. She goes, turn. You go to the mountains. I'm staying under the apple tree in the garden, you know, at the table. No, no, no. I'm staying here. You go there. She says no to him when she says turn. In paragraph 2, she's under a season of discipline. She goes, okay, okay, okay. Verse 2, chapter 3, I'll go to the city. You say, well, I didn't say the city. I said the mountain. I said city, that's the beginning. You're taking the right steps. But here, chapter 4, verse 6, the verse we're looking at, she goes, I'll go all the way. Now let's look at verse 6 again. He says, I will go my way. Notice the phrase my way. We're going to look at that in a minute. To the mountain of myrrh. Mountain of myrrh is the key phrase. And I will go to the hill of frankincense, or the hill of incense. That speaks of the prayer ministry, actually. We'll get there in a moment. Paragraph B. So she goes, I will go to the mountain of myrrh. We know that myrrh throughout the book, in the Old Testament, one of the ways it's used, it's a costly burial spice that has great fragrance, smells beautiful, and they use it as a burial spice at funerals. It speaks of Jesus' death. That Jesus, it's the death that He died. He embraced that myrrh. We talked about that a few other sessions, so I won't spend time on that. The frankincense speaks, in the Scripture, it's incense. Just say, think of incense. Make it a little simpler word. Speaks of prayer throughout the Bible. It's the incense that arises in heaven. The incense is the prayers of the saints. So we ascend, look at paragraph C, we ascend the hill of frankincense. In other words, by engaging in prayer, we appropriate the strength to ascend the mountain of myrrh. We're never going to ascend the mountain of myrrh. We're never going to be able to sustain those big challenges, the mountain of myrrh, where there's death, the self involved in it, there's risk. We're never going to be able to ascend the mountain of myrrh without the hill of frankincense, without the prayer engagement, without that interaction with the Lord. Paragraph D, she goes, I will go to the mountain. I will go. How beautiful to Jesus are those words. Yes, I'll do it. I'll do it. And I'm not talking about going to the kind of the out of the way ministry trip that's kind of real strange or real different for three weeks or four weeks. I'm not talking about something like that. When I talk about going to the mountain, I'm talking about with the way we carry our heart in our lifestyle, not just a three-week thing or a weekend thing, that kind of thing. I'm talking about something, I'm going to obey you. I'm going to bring myself into a deeper alignment with your heart. And it might cost me my reputation to be true. It may cost me money. It may be risky. It may not go good. I may look bad. I might get criticized. It may be hard and out of the way of affirmation. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to be faithful to the will of God in my life. That's what it's talking about. Now when she goes in paragraph E, I will go my way. Every one of us has a tailor-made path that the Lord has chosen for each of you to walk in. Your way to the mountain of Myrrh is different than my way. Even though we might even engage in the same calling, or we might engage in the same activity, it's different how I do it from how you do it. It's when, you know, in conversations I get asked by young people, how many hours do you do this? And how many hours do you do that? And how much money do you do this? And how much do you give there? And I go, I don't want to tell you those things. And I don't want to tell you, not because I'm trying to be humble, because I like my answers. I mean, I'm at peace with the answers. I actually like them. And I don't want to not tell you the details to be hidden or to be humble. That's not even the point. I don't want you to try to go my way to the mountain. I want you to find your way. Because my way, 40 years later from your way, it just may not work for you at all. My way may end up throwing you to a tailspin. When I was younger, I told everybody everything. And then as I got older, I saw more and more young people trying to do exactly what I was doing. They don't have my calling. They don't have the same history. They don't have the same assignment. They don't have the same personality. They don't have the same life circumstances. Trying to do the same thing exactly doesn't work. You go your way to the mountain. There's a way you'll carry your heart. And the Lord and you will find your way together. It's a very, very important principle. We can be inspired by other people's dedication, but the practical application, it just won't work exactly. Because even your own way will change over the months and years. And the Lord will adjust it as you go. Talk about page 4. Well, she says, I'm going my way. Let's do it. Okay. Then he says in verse 8, I'll take you up on it then. Come with me from Lebanon. Come with me, my bride. Look from the top of the mountain of Ammanah. That's a mountain range in Lebanon. I have the notes there, particularly on the additional notes. I have a lot more on this. So the Lord says, okay, you said you'll go to the mountain in verse 6. Verse 8, come, let's do it. You know, just being humorous, she goes like, now? Yeah, let's do it. Like, oh, okay, okay. Let's do it. Let's live that new dedication. And again, it's not just in a kind of an eccentric kind of outward one-time event. It's a whole way of carrying your life with God, that you're going to really obey him with your time, your money, your passions, your words, what you do with your energy. I'll go to the mountain. He says, now notice this. You're looking from the top of the mountains with me. You're going to have that bigger perspective from the place where I'm at. But there's lions and there's leopards up here. There's battles. There's devouring animals up here that will come against you up here. You have to know that. Paragraph G, the lions and leopards are animals that devour. This speaks of spiritual warfare. There's higher dedication always brings a greater demonic resistance, always. One preacher said, new levels, new devils. There's a new level of dedication, a new level of believing God. There will be a new level of demonic attack against you. There's lions and leopards up on those mountains. Lions and tigers and bears, oh no. Okay. Let's go down to Roman numeral four. You have ravished my heart. He now tells her, this is how I feel about what you're doing. You are ravishing my heart. Again, she hasn't matured yet. She's only said yes. She hasn't actually gone to the mountain. She just said, I will go. He goes, my heart is so touched by your resolve to obey me with your money, your time, your energy, your reputation. Again, you'll serve in difficult places with no affirmation that's hard, that doesn't have any kind of those kudos that are so nice to get from other people. He goes, you've ravished my heart. That response moves me, is what he says. And beloved, this is not just a theoretical poem. His heart is ravished by you in your weakness. This isn't chapter five, six, seven, eight, where the maturity has all come to pass. She's still in the early stages, but she is resolved. This verse touches one of the most significant themes in the whole song. If not the most significant theme, certainly one of the most, if not the most, it's the theme of God's deep desire for His people. He loves the relationship. He loves the relationship, a working definition of the ravished heart of God. I mean, you could have a half a dozen good definitions. God's heart is filled with emotion of delight because of one who is unusually attractive. That's the Webster dictionary. A couple, brought a couple of those lines together from Webster. To be ravished is to be filled with delight because of the unusual beauty. The Lord says, I have delight in the relationship. I see your weakness. But He says, remember verse one, you're beautiful, then gives eight virtues that she hasn't matured in because He's calling forth the seeds of her future full maturity. Beloved, this touches your heart a little bit, touches my heart a little bit. A little bit of this will go a long way and change us on the inside. This is what we want to lock into, this kind of reality, that He feels this way about us. Paragraph B, probably the verse I say the most in sermons, messages, Jesus said, I'll paraphrase, in the same way the Father loved me, in the same intensity, that's how I love you. That is just unthinkable to me what the fullness of that could mean. It's so beyond what I can grasp. Jesus said, in the same intensity the Father loves me, that's how I feel about you. And He told him an hour or two later, and every one of you will deny me tonight. So my feeling for you is not based on some illusion of your maturity. You will all deny me tonight. But I want you to know, I love you like the Father loves me. And I won't change while you're growing and maturing and discovering your own weakness. I won't draw back from how I feel about you. Roman numeral five, the Christian paradigm of God. I got this from William Barclay's commentary. Some of this, not all of it, but a lot of it. I changed a few little ideas here or there. You can check it out yourself if you want. I just slipped a few ideas from him. It was brilliant. I read this many, many years ago, and it so deeply touched me. The Christian paradigm of God is found on revelation of God's tenderness, His deep emotions. The Christian paradigm, or paradigm obviously means perspective, the Christian point of view, or paradigm of God is founded on the revelation of God's tenderness, on His deep emotions. Now here's the idea that Barclay had. He says, the idea of God being a tender father, passionate bridegroom, was a new thought in religious history 2,000 years ago. This was a new idea, even though in the Hebrew prophets they had faint references to it. But it was not something that took root in the Jewish mindset at all, in any kind of prominent way. Paragraph B, in the Jewish tradition, we're going back, you know, thousands of years, 4,000 years of Jewish tradition, from Abraham was 4,000 years ago that the Jewish nation and people have existed. In the Jewish tradition, what was emphasized most about God is that He's holy. And the idea He's totally separated from sin. That was the idea, He's holy. He has no impurity. They didn't think of God as holy, as sharing human experience. They thought of Him as incapable of sharing human experience because He is holy, because He is God. He can't really share our experience. He can observe it, but He can't share it with deep feelings. The Stoics, paragraph C, the Greek philosophers, the Stoics believed God had no emotion. He had no emotion at all. The main attribute they saw of God was apatheia. It's the Greek word apatheia, apathy. In other words, the Stoics, the philosophers, their view of God, he was, highlighted God's inability to feel. And here's why. They reasoned if God was real happy or real sad, either one, positive or negative, if He was real happy or real sad, if He had that ability, He would be vulnerable to be hurt. He could be happy, He could be sad. If He could be sad, He could be hurt. And if He could be hurt, He could be influenced by the one that hurt Him. If He's influenced, He might be controlled by them. They said it's impossible. God could never ever have emotions because if He had emotions and it was influenced, the person that influenced Him influenced God. For that one moment would be greater than God. So the Stoics said, no, no emotions. That was the Greek philosophy. The Epicureans, another group of Greek philosophers, they believed that the gods lived in a detached, eternal bliss. It's not that he had emotions, that he was in the in-between world, the netherworld, and that God was not even aware of the events on the earth. God was living all this pantheon of Greek gods. They were uninvolved. They were detached completely. So E, the Jews had a God who was separated from human feeling and experience, human experience. The Stoics had an emotionless God. The Epicureans had a detached God. It's into this context, Jesus comes and goes, God is my father. He's your father. Father? Again, that technically was in the Old Testament, but it wasn't a part of the Jewish mindset. He's a tender father, and I am God. I've become one of you, a human. I feel what you feel. What is this? It was mind-boggling new ideas in human thought, in religious thought, in human history. Top of page five. I mean, how radical the message of Jesus of Nazareth, calling us to his father and calling us as a bridegroom king to be his eternal companion forever, starting the day we're born again. This is unimaginable, the full implications of this, unimaginable to our limited thinking right now. We are going to be blown away as we see this unfold when we stand before him. But beloved, I don't want to wait till then. I want to get as much of this now. Now. And I haven't gone that far. I've gone further than I used to be, but I want to go further in this. This is absolutely worth everything, everything, everything, the pursuit of this. And I know that you believe it, you wouldn't be here tonight. Well, let's look at his love for his bride in verse nine and ten. Let's look at it again in verse nine. You've ravished my heart. He says it again. You've ravished my heart. I have this deep delight because of your unusual beauty to me. Only God could look at people like you and me and the human race this way. He really, really feels this way. He says, with one look of your eye, with one link of your necklace, I'm ravished. One look of your eye, one link of your necklace. Then he goes on and makes this dynamic statement. How beautiful is your love? Then he goes on and he says the opposite of what the bride said, the opposite. I mean, he turns the phrase around. He says, how much better than wine is your love? Remember back in chapter one she goes, your love, Jesus, is better than wine. He turns and he goes, your love is better to me than everything in this world of all creation that can exhilarate the human heart. I want your love more than all the grandeur and splendor of the world. He turns the phrase around on her. Beloved, it's not just that his love is better than anything this world can offer. He says to you, your love is better to him than the splendor of anything that this world, the most glorious things that he could get from this world. He wants you more than that. What a statement. Paragraph B, he says, one look at your eye, one look at your eyes. Jesus' heart is moved by each look of devotion, or each look of devotion and love, however you want to say it. Each look of love and devotion, devotion and love that we give him. The very movements of our heart. Touch him. You're in a difficult time. You're just quiet. You're not in a prayer room. You're driving in a car. Say, Lord, I love you. I love you. The Lord says, that ravishes me. The look of your eye, the movement of your heart, it moves me. Oh Lord, but I'm just so fickle because I love you today, and then in a few moments I'm depressed, and then I'm questioning things, and I don't believe what you said, and then I'm thinking of compromising to get ahead in another way. Ah, but I do love you. He goes, no, talk to me. I love when you tell me this. The devil comes along and says, you hopeless hypocrite, just be quiet. You hopeless hypocrite, and you say, no, he has ravished one look of my eye. Every movement of our heart, the very look of devotion, that's insincerity. The whole thing is is in the context of that which is insincerity with him. I'm not talking about just singing at a worship service. I'm talking about singing at a worship service, or being quiet at a worship service with a heart that's saying, in truth, I love you. I'm not as far along as I want to be, but I really want to go there. One link of your necklace. In scriptures, the neck can often speak of the will. The will, our free will. The neck can be stiff-necked, or the neck can be submissive. There's a handful of illustrations where the neck means submission, or the neck means rebellion. So it speaks of our free will. Here's the idea. Spiritually, every response, every link, every decision, he says, it ravishes me. It moves me. Every link in that necklace, every act of your will, that you recommit again and come up short, you recommit again, come up short, you read again, commit again. He says, every single link touches me. He remembers every movement of your heart towards him. Paragraph D, because the Lord considers our love as fair or beautiful. He says, how beautiful. The word fair and beautiful is interchangeable. He considers our love beautiful. He says, how beautiful is your love to me. Beloved, does this, I mean, imagine what this does on the inside of us. If this touches us, a little bit of this will go a long way. Roman numeral eight, I mean seven. Then he goes on, he describes her life in the spirit. He says, verse 10, again, how much better than wine is your love. I'd rather have your love than all the splendor of this, of the grandeur of creation. I'd rather have your love. It's more, it's better than the wine of this world. He goes on now, he breaks it down. The scent of your perfumes is better than all spices. Your lips drip like honeycomb. The fragrance of your garments. So he gives three different facets of her love. B, he talks about the scent of your perfumes. This refers to her mind that's in agreement with the word. It's probably a better way to say it. The mind in agreement, not filled with the word, but in agreement with the word. Because the fragrance of a flower is that invisible fragrance of perfume, expresses the inner quality of that plant. It's your inward thinking, it's your thoughts that he says, it's fragrant to me. Not all of our thoughts are, but he says, those thoughts that are in agreement with me. They're like fragrant to me. He says, your lips. Paragraph C, her lips, it speaks of her words. It's being sweet like honey. Whether you're worshiping, he says, your face is beautiful, your words are sweet. Remember he said that back in chapter 2 verse 14. Or when you're encouraging one another, or you're speaking words of blessing to a believer, unbeliever, anywhere. The Lord says, your words are like honey to me. I'm listening to you. Then he goes on, he says, your deeds. Paragraph D, the fragrance of your garments. So we know in the book of Revelation, the garments are the acts of the saints or deeds. So he's talking about the way that she expresses her love, her thought, words, and deeds. Paragraph E, this is one of the most amazing poetic verses. Verse 12 on, of dedication. The bride's dedication to the king. He goes, here's what you're like. You're like an enclosed garden to me. A, a sealed spring, a sealed fountain. And again, you can read that more in the notes. A king's garden was private. It was enclosed. It had a fence. Because an open garden or an open fountain or source of water, it could be polluted by the animals. So it was sealed off. It was enclosed. They put a fence around it so only the king could enjoy it. It would not be polluted at all by the animals. The water or the garden. He goes, your heart is like a closed garden. You've shut the door to defilement. Your heart to me is like sealed springs that cannot be polluted by the wild animals that's guarded and kept for me. Again, I have a little bit more on the notes there. Paragraph G, the Spirit's ministry is now being described in three different ways. Three different sources of water describing three different ways we experience the Holy Spirit. And again, I have a bit more of that on the notes. Let's just bring this to an end here just in this next 60 seconds here. Now verse 16, Roman numeral 8. Now she has enough confidence. She has enough confidence in God's goodness. She goes, okay, okay, you love me that way. You love my thoughts. My words are like fragrance to you. My garments, my deeds are like perfume. He goes, she goes, oh, you love her. You love so much about me. She goes, okay, okay. Verse 16, she prays the most important prayer in the book. She goes, awake oh north wind and come oh south wind. Blow on my garden that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its pleasant fruits. So she goes, awake north winds. The north winds were the cold winds of adversity. She goes, I'm not afraid of trouble now. I'm not afraid of the north winds because you love me and we're so connected. Awake oh north winds. I'm not troubled. She says, awake oh south winds. I want the blessing, the refreshing winds of the south. She knew that both dimensions. There are times we deny ourselves. There's times that are sacrificial, that are difficult in our obedience. That's the north winds. And there's times where just everything is alive and fun. That's the south winds. She knows both of them are important for fragrance to come out of the garden of her heart. And notice what she says. You'll have to read it carefully. She goes, my garden is now your garden. For the first four chapters, we're at the end of chapter four. It was my garden from this time on. The next four chapters, it is your garden. I am yours from now on. Only yours. The first four chapters is focused on her inheritance in Christ. The second four chapters, Christ's inheritance in her. Both of them are eternal and both of them are important. Some believers only think about their inheritance in Christ. But beloved, He has an inheritance in you. It's not just He wants fragrance in your garden for your life to be mature. He says, I want your garden to be my garden. This is the turning point of the book right here. Chapter four, verse 16. And then He takes her on into chapter five where she's going to experience the north winds. And He's going to see if she means it. And she says yes, but that's for next week. Amen. Let's stand.