Mike Bickle emphasizes the profound identity of believers in God's beauty, drawing from the Song of Solomon to illustrate how understanding God's love and value for us transforms our self-perception. He highlights the importance of feeding our hearts at God's table, where worship and revelation of His beauty lead to a deeper relationship with Him. Bickle encourages believers to recognize their worth as the 'rose of Sharon' and 'lily of the valleys,' affirming that true beauty and acceptance come from God. He stresses that our identity in Christ shapes our value and success, urging believers to embrace their role as cherished heirs of God's love.

We're on session 5, a 12-part series on the Song of Solomon. In our last session, paragraph A, the bride asked one of the most important questions that devout believers ask in every age, in every generation. Where do you feed my heart? That is one of the most important questions for anyone who sincerely and deeply loves Jesus. Where will you satisfy the cry of my heart to encounter you more? Well, he gives a seven-fold answer in chapter 1, verse 8 to 11. That was last session. Now we're building on that, paragraph B. We're starting in verse 12, and the king is continuing to give the answer that he began in verse 8 to 11. Where and how he feeds his people. And the reason I'm saying this is that chapter 1, verse 12 to 14, all the way to chapter 2, verse 7, is critical information and truth for people that want to grow in passion for Jesus. Those that really want to go forward, I want to encourage you to be focused and locked in on the truths, the New Testament truths that are lodged in a part of this passage here. Verse 12, while the king is at his table, now this is the king, he's still speaking. And of course, the table is the subject of feeding is still in focus here. My perfume sends forth its fragrance. While the king is at his table, she says, my perfume, there's that element of love and worship that is ascending forth when he's feeding me at his table. When I'm connecting with him at the heart level, my spikenard, my perfume, my worship ascends, is what this passage is talking about in the spiritual interpretation. Why? Because a bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me. She says, I've understood. He is like a bundle of myrrh that lies all night between my breasts. And then she goes on and says a second point, not only is he like a bundle of myrrh, but he's like a cluster of henna blooms in the vineyard of En-Gedi. She's at the table and she's moved to worship is the picture we have in verse 12, as she feeds on the one who so values her. That's the point she's understanding. She understands how much he values her. And many people in the body of Christ never grasped that really. They begin the journey of his value. And my beloved, there is no journey greater than his value, his beauty, his worth. But when we truly understand who he is, it inevitably leads us to see who we are to him. And in his greatness, we see our value in his eyes. And when that connects with us, something about our human makeup is dynamically impacted. Paragraph C, she's at the table. She's feeding at his table. God provides a table for us. Of course we know that that table is what he did on the cross and the benefits of the cross. He feeds us on the truths of the cross. And the truth of the cross is not only what he did on the cross, though that truth is beyond exaggeration in its importance, what he did on the cross, but it's also why he did what he did on the cross. That's part of the truth. That's part of the benefit of the cross, the cross and its benefits. What he did and why he did it are both essential elements to the message of the cross. And as she feeds on these truths, these truths, her worship ascends like fragrance. Her perfume arises before him. Because we know throughout the Old and New Testament, worship and fragrance that ascends is compared regularly throughout the Old and New Testament. Worship is compared to perfume or incense or fragrance that arises before God. Now we know that worship is a response to a revelation. Meaning when we have a revelation of what he did or why he did it or who he is, anything that touches those subjects, what he did on the cross, why he did it and the glory of who he is, that revelation provokes a response of worship in our heart. David, he really grasped this in Psalm 23. He says, even in the presence of my enemies, whether it's the armies, the enemy armies chasing him or whether it's his own failure which is an enemy that's chasing him in a different sort of way. He says in verse 6, the mercy of God follows me all of my days. Goodness and mercy, that was David's paradigm of God, his perspective of the God of Israel. That whether it was a physical enemy or a spiritual enemy that he was dealing with, when his own giants that he was fighting to overcome in his life, David was locked in on this reality. Goodness and mercy chased me down all of my days. Even when I'm in a spiritual funk, in a bad mood, mercy is chasing me down. That's how he viewed the God of Israel. And when we feed at that table, like David did, that's the table the Lord prepares before us, is truth about himself, then our heart soars. The fragrance of worship abounds. But many are starving, their heart is starving, weighed down under the weight of their own guilt and shame, because they don't feed at this table. Paragraph 2, Paul said it this way, reckon yourself to be alive to God. See yourself differently is what Paul says in this most important chapter of Romans 6, where he, the most important chapter in the New Testament on personal transformation with the how-to's. And here in verse 11 of chapter 6, Paul says, here's how-to number one, see yourself differently. See yourself as alive in God. See yourself as under the reign of grace. And in the New Testament revelation, the grace of God includes the value we possess in God's eyes, in Jesus' eyes, that the most beautiful man that ever walked the earth, fully God, fully man, the most beautiful one, links us and yokes us to his beauty. And the beauty he possesses, he imparts to us. I mean, it's remarkable reality, under the doctrine of grace, of being alive to God, the truth of his love for us, the beauty we have before him, it's all connected. It's the fullness of our being yoked and joined to the most beautiful, loving one that ever walked the earth. Paragraph two, we are to reckon ourselves, see ourselves alive to God, or fully accepted, fully accepted by him. And again, that involves his affection towards us. He doesn't stamp our passport. He fully accepts us, not just into his empire, but into his heart. It's more than a stamped passport. To be fully accepted means into his heart, in the depth of fellowship and interaction, the very impartation of his glory and beauty is intrinsic to the relationship of being fully accepted. Paragraph D, her worship ascends like fragrance. And again, in the Old and the New Testaments, worship and fragrance are compared often, regularly. Paragraph two, what kind of worship, what kind of fragrance ascends out of your life before God? Now we know the beauty that he gave us in Christ, but I'm talking about our response. When we have confidence, when we have gratitude in these truths about who we are to him, and how, who he is, and what he did, when we have confidence, when we see ourselves as in these truths, I tell you, it is a beautiful fragrance to God. So often we get stuck in the opposite of the fragrance of gratitude and confidence and love, because we see who he is, and what he did, and why he did it. We get entrenched in the, the non-fragrance of, filled with fear and anxiety and condemnation and shame, and retreating from the Lord, and trying to find our, our satisfaction in other sources. Top of page two, she gives one of her poetic statements about him. She goes, a bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, and it lies all night between my breast in the night. And, and what she is understanding is God's love for her, and her value to God. Again, this, it's a difficult thing for believers to lock into. There's a resistance, I have found over the years, in the human heart, even to see the, the worth of Jesus to us, and to the Father. But when it comes to seeing our worth to him, even the most devout back away and retreat. And they come up short in the fullness of who this man really is. The way he relates to us, the way he feels about us, and the fullness of what the grace of God has yoked us to as heirs of eternal life with the Son. Jesus' love and his value for his people is seen most when he, in his going to the cross. Why did he go to the cross? To have relationship with us, and to bring us back to relationship with his Father. He brought, he went to the cross, so that the Father could receive his inheritance from his people, and so the Son could as well. Now paragraph F, myrrh throughout the Song of Solomon, and actually throughout the Bible, is symbolic, and it's clearly symbolic of, of embracing death. Myrrh has that paradox, paragraph F, of being a very expensive and beautiful fragrance. I mean, myrrh has a tremendous fragrance, very expensive, very costly, but a very bitter taste. It was used in preparing a body for a burial, at a funeral. It's funeral spice, using our terms today. The three wise kings brought myrrh to Jesus at his birth. I mean, can you imagine bringing burial spice to a baby shower? But it was a prophetic symbol that he would embrace the myrrh of suffering. On the cross he was offered myrrh. There's many examples of the symbolism of myrrh relating it to the place of death. And what she's saying is, is my beloved is to me the one that paid the costly price. I see what he did. In the New Testament language is what she's saying. Now the wealthy women in the ancient world, some of them would have a bracelet of myrrh because of the great fragrance. It was very expensive, so not many could afford it. They would go to bed at night with the, with that necklace of myrrh in the ancient world. Perfume was a very important thing. Let's just say it that way. Showers were not as available as they are today. And she would lie all night with myrrh. The necklace of myrrh is the idea. And in this symbolic language, number one, it speaks of the night time, through the night, speaks of the consistency. In other words, all day, all night, she never let go of this myrrh resting on her heart. She thought, she believed these great truths of salvation. The night speaks of the consistency of the myrrh resting on her heart, meditating on the night. Paragraph two, the most worshipful saints think much on the cross. It is their constant meditation. What he did. Why he did it. Who he is. All of those are deeply connected truths related to the cross and the subject of the grace of God. It was their constant meditation. They never grew weary of it. Never grew weary of it. Beloved, forever and ever, we will be filled with gratitude. For our beloved is like a bundle, an abundance of myrrh. We will always see, forever, the costly death and the reason he did it and what it achieved. And we'll delight in it all the ages. I mean, throughout all the ages in the future. Paragraph H, the henna blooms were very beautiful, fragrant flowers. The bride saw the beauty and the delightfulness of Jesus. She said, not only is my beloved like a bundle of myrrh, not only do I see the abundance of what it cost him and what he endured, not only that, my beloved is to me as delightful as a cluster of henna blooms. He is delightful to all who see the truth about him. He's not the burdensome, boring God that religion, even Christian religion, falsely promotes. It's not grit your teeth and pay the price to endure a boring God. I've heard people talk about seeking God and prayer that way. And I'm not putting it down. I totally understand it. I taught a little bit like that for a few years myself. I do understand it. But it was like, grit your teeth, pay the price. And the unspoken message is, endure a boring God. And if you endure him long enough, pressing in, he'll reward you because he doesn't have many friends anyway. I mean, the whole concept is, is not according to the truth of who he is. But my beloved is to me delightful. He's like a cluster of henna blooms. He's fragrant, he's beautiful, he's delightful to me. Paragraph two, we will boldly proclaim. This is our delight, to boldly proclaim the truth about him who is a cluster of henna blooms. Now I wouldn't use that language. You might confuse somebody. We're using the Song of Solomon as that poetic language in the agricultural language of the Shulamite Bride. You might say it this way. You're saying the same thing, but you might say it this way, here in chapter 5, verse 16. He's altogether lovely. This is my beloved. This is my friend. That's saying the same truth. You'll probably connect in a better way if you say that. Roman numeral 2, the bridegroom declared his love and he declared his beauty to her. Now we see two very foundational truths in verse 15. Now we see them repeated over and over in chapter 1, actually. Two foundational truths, but I want you to identify these two truths, though they're put together in many verses throughout, not just chapter 1, but the whole of Song of Solomon. This idea of that we are beautiful. Behold, you are fair, my love. Behold, you are fair. That the bridegroom declared that she was beautiful to him. The bridegroom declared she was beautiful to him. And again, the subject of the beauty that we receive from him is part of the doctrine of grace. That we're heirs and we're yoked and joined forever to the most beautiful king. It's not like he's beautiful and the one that is his partner forever is kind of out, opposite of beautiful, is the point I'm trying to say. The second truth is that he revealed his affection for her. His affection for her. Now these two foundational truths for anybody who wants to grow in their passion for Jesus. They want to grow in their love for God. They want to be strengthened in the first commandment. I tell you, the paradigm of love and beauty. His fiery love and the beauty he possesses and the beauty he imparts. Those subjects intrinsic to the doctrine of grace. When grace is understood in its fullness is more than just stamping our passport so we go to heaven instead of hell. But we're in at the deepest relationship with ever with the king who's most beautiful. I mean forever we are the darling of his heart. Sharing his reign on the earth forever. At his side as he praises his father. I mean what a remarkable heritage we have. I have found many people over the years that want to grow in their holiness through purity. They want to be more fervent but they approach it a different way than the paradigm of love and beauty. I want to encourage you these two truths are not just helpful they are foundational to growing in your consistent devotion to the Lord. This is something the Lord began to get my attention on in a real direct way back in the 80s and it was a new idea to me but I could tell you these many years later I am a satisfied customer. I just want more. I am so glad the Lord interrupted me and began to talk to me along these lines. And you know I was more you know the warrior get the task done, count the cost, pay the price, die in the process if I have to. As a worthy soldier and I didn't have much of the understanding of love and beauty as truly the foundation and the whole paradigm of the relationship. And when the Lord began to talk to me about this I struggled with it. I just couldn't find it. It didn't connect for a while. I found a repelling of it in my heart. I thought I don't really like that. It was hard to say, hard to connect with, hard to get a hold of. But as I began to see it a little bit, I began to see it everywhere. Once you have those lenses, those new set of glasses on, you find the truth of love and beauty everywhere. Old and New Testament. And again it is the doctrine of grace in its fullest implications. Paragraph B. The beauty that God possesses is the very beauty He imparts to His people. I mean can you imagine He imparts His beauty. It says in Isaiah 63, one of the foundational descriptions of salvation and redemption. He gives beauty for the broken ash heap of our sinful, injured humanity, defiled. I mean we spend our life burning our lives up in wrong passion and we have an ash heap to show. We have broken dreams and wrong ideas and all kinds of pains and aches and shames and failures. We've spent the fires of our life burning for the wrong things and we only have a heap of ash to show. And He says I'll take those ashes. Actually I want them. And I'll give you my beauty for your ashes. I mean what a trade off. And any view of the grace of God that minimizes this foundational description that Jesus appealed to of redemption is missing a huge dimension of salvation. Moses spoke about it in Psalm 90. I mean way back 1,500 years before Christ. Moses had a glimpse of it that the beauty of the Lord would be on us. That's where God was taking His people. Now in our last session, session four, I gave four reasons why we are beautiful in God's sight even in our weakness. And you can look at our last session or look at the internet if you're first time here tonight. Paragraph C, I'm going to say the same thing I've already said three times. But I just like saying it. We grow with confidence. We grow in confidence in God when we feel loved by Him. When we feel beautiful in the grace of God in His eyes. Though in the eyes of men they don't see that beauty but He does. Beloved when you feel loved and you feel beauty, you respond very differently with your free time and with your resources. What you do with your time and money is changed dramatically. What you do in your imagination and the secret place of your own thought life is really different if you feel beautiful and loved or you feel shameful and dirty. And believers are in both camps. And it's a tragedy. A person that feels dirty, I'm talking about a born again believer, they will live dirty. They will run from Him. They won't run to Him. They'll hide from Him to try to fix it and then come later when they have a better offering. And that's futile. We come in our weakness. We accept the truth of how He feels about us because of who He is and what He did. We accept the beauty that He imparts, that He sees. Even in the willing spirit we have, He sees beauty in it. And I tell you, it changes the way that we process our life, the way we, our own imaginations, our thought life, the secret thought life is very different when it's rooted in this reality. Top of page three. Well, the king now moves on and the king obviously in the New Testament language is Jesus speaking to His bride, to His church. He says, you have dove's eyes. He says, I love you and you're beautiful. And let me tell you one thing I love about you. I love the fact that you have dove's eyes. And this speaks of her being single-minded, single-minded. And it speaks of her being loyal to Jesus. He sees her single-mindedness even in her weakness. Because in chapter one, she's still at the beginning of her journey. But He sees the reach of her heart to be single-minded. Now, she sets her heart to be single-minded, to have dove's eyes, to live in that focus. And she comes up short. Then she re-signs up. She comes up short. She re-signs up. She comes up short. Now, we say, Lord, what are you going to do with me? He goes, oh, my fair one, my love, my beautiful one. That's how most translations use the word, translate the word fair. My beautiful one, the one I love, I see your dove's eyes even in your weakness. I see the re-signing up over and over. I see your desire to be loyal to me. Beloved, when you see that He values even that re-signing up, it gives you all the new motivation to keep doing it. If you think that He looks at you and says, I've had it. That's the last time. I told you before, that's it. You've heard that voice. You know that tone. I mean, it's all over the earth, that tone. One more time and you're out of here. I've had it with you. That's not the voice of our beloved. That's not how He talks to His people. Well, you can read more about dove's eyes there. Let's go on down to Roman numeral four. Now, she responds to him. She is so thrilled. She goes, if you like me that much, it's only because your personality is so beautiful. I mean, anyone that likes a weak one like me in that kind of intensity must have a unique beauty about who you are. She declares back after these affirmations, verse 12 to 14. She goes, you're beautiful. And again, in this language here, she says handsome or beautiful is the meaning. Number one, you're beautiful. Number two, you're my beloved. You're the one I've set my heart to love. And number three, I enjoy you. You're pleasant to me. Three foundational truths. He's beautiful. He's the one we set our heart to love and we enjoy the relationship. He's pleasant. Paragraph B, she begins her journey into being fascinated by God's beauty, being fascinated by God's beauty. You know, King David, the man after God's own heart, he began a journey in his youth of being fascinated by God's beauty. He said this one thing, to behold His beauty. I'm sad. I don't know how to get through the paradox is that we have so much language about love and beauty and the sadness is it can become IHOP rhetoric instead of spiritual reality. Everybody that's been here a day and a half knows about beauty and love. And it's easy to say, but beloved, I want to appeal to your greatness and to your spiritual enjoyment of God. I want to appeal to the glory of God as well. To make it a real pursuit to behold His beauty. To see Him as the beautiful God that is pleasant. I tell you, it will be worth all the effort that you put into it. It's more than rhetoric. It is a genuine vision in her heart to pursue this lifestyle. She sees salvation as more than being forgiven, more than just blessed circumstances, but salvation, beloved, it's an invitation to live fascinated for real. Not just IHOP rhetoric. It's real. It's real. Some of you have been here five or ten years. I got good news. It's real. It's not just a poster. It's not just a CD. It's not just an album cover. It's real. And when that becomes real to you, I mean in the secret place of your heart, I'm going for it. I tell you, the way you view time and money and energy and opportunity changes. When that vision to behold, to experience beauty becomes a personal vision in your life. Paragraph C. Now, so I don't overstate my own journey, I have had a hold of that. I mean in a real grip and I've lost it. Then the Holy Spirit brings it back to my remembrance and I sign back up and I go strong for so much. I lose it again. And I, beloved, I know how to lose it. And I know about, I've lost it a number of times, but I know what it means to sign back up. And I got good news for you. It works to sign back up. And some of you tonight, been here for years, you need to sign back up. Some of you are new. And this needs to be a journey you begin tonight. She says, you're pleasant. You're not just beautiful and the one I love, but you're actually pleasant. The more she sees of His beauty and love, the more she loves Him and the more she enjoys her relationship with God. Oh, the pleasure of loving God. Someone ought to write a book on that. The pleasure of loving God. The genuine pleasure. Not that it's so overwhelming that every other temptation and every negative thought is done away with, but there's a pleasure in the presence of the negative thoughts and the negative feelings. But that pleasure of loving Him begins to dominate little by little as we stay with it. That's the place where obedience seems reasonable. I tell you, when we enjoy the relationship, obedience seems reasonable. When we don't enjoy the relationship, obedience, it just feels like legalism, even when it's not. That's kind of, code is typically, code word, legalism is code for don't press into God. Most people that I've talked to over the years that use legalism to justify a spiritually passive life, they don't even know what legalism really is. It's just code for I don't want to press in. And I want to encourage you, there's a reasonableness of pressing into God when we see He's pleasant, He's altogether lovely. Now there is real legalism, but I hear it, the way I've heard it used in the last ten years or so, it's mostly not by people that even understand the mechanic, I mean the details of what it really, really is. And I only say that so you don't get taken off the track and the journey by religious rhetoric, even using that word. Top of page four. Well, we go on to chapter two, and we're going to go from verse two to seven. And really chapter one, twelve to two, seven is one big theme. I mean, it's just delicious. I mean, I must have the greatest job on the earth. My job the last few days is to prepare these notes. To write, pray, cry, write, pray, cry. What a job! Anyway, let's go on. I'm just so grateful for these truths and being able to feel a little bit of power of them, but I'm so jealous that you would feel the power of these. I know that some of you do. Some of you long to. You're starting to think, well, maybe it's not going to work for me. That's a lie. It will work for you. I thought for some years it will work for everybody but me. I got the shock of my life. It began to work for me, because it's not about you or me. It's about the power of the truth. It's the measure of the power of the truth, not my capacity or my proneness to it. Nobody's prone to it, and nobody has a natural capacity for spiritual truth. The power of the truth is why the breakthrough comes, if you stay with it. I mean, I really was depressed a few years thinking I will never enjoy the presence of God. The Bible was boring. Prayer was miserable. Fasting was anathema. I mean, everything! If you had told me then I would be doing what I'm doing now, I just would have been in total despair. I'm glad I stayed with it. The power of the truth warmed my cold heart. I mean, I was on fire for God, but had a cold heart in these truths. Paragraph A, the Father promised to give Jesus an inheritance. The Father, in chapter 2, this verse 1 to 7, is about the inheritance, particularly verse 1 and 2. The Father knew the inheritance that Jesus wants most. Beloved, I got good news. The inheritance He wants most is not more property. He owns all the nations. He doesn't need more money, doesn't want more power. He wants you. You are the great prize of all the age for which the Father promised to Him as His inheritance. When He promised the nations to Jesus, He wasn't talking about the real estate. He was talking about the people in the nations. He gets the real estate too, but it was already His. He wanted you. When it says that He will possess the nations, He wants to possess the people in the nations. That's what He's after. He so loves being loved by you, and He loves loving you. The Father knows what He wants. He says, I have an inheritance for you. I got a prize for you, and it's what you want. I know you best. Paragraph B, so the bride now, she takes this stand. What a glorious statement. I am the rose of Sharon. I am the lily of the valleys. This is the bride speaking. She's making a confession of her life purpose and identity before the Lord as His inheritance. And then the king speaks in verse 2 in agreement, says, yes, you are the lily. In verse 1, the bride says, I am the rose and lily. In verse 2, the king says, you are the lily. That's right. And you're a lily among the thorns of a fallen, sinful, dark world. You're in a deep valley of darkness among the thorns, but you are the pure lily to me that I want in this world. Paragraph A, the rose speaks of her loving God with all of her heart. She's the rose. Speaks of her loving God. And of course, this symbolism, you can, there's movement in how you can apply the symbolism. But again, it's in the love language of the agricultural society of which the Shulamite maiden is living, and the king is coming by wooing her to be his companion, his bride. A rose is the chief of flowers. It's the flower that communicates love because of its beauty and its fragrance. It's the flower that's commonly used to celebrate marriage and love. She goes, I am the celebration. I am what you celebrate. I love you. I am your rose. I am the great prize of all the ages. The Father has cultivated for you the inheritance he promised you. It's me. It's you. Beloved, when you see yourself in that light, everything is different about your life. Paragraph 2, the lily. She says, I'm just not the rose. I'm the lily. It speaks of purity or obeying God with all of our heart. She's the lily in the valley, the valley of the dark places of this fallen world. It goes on in verse 2 when Jesus, when the king said, you're a lily among thorns. The thorns speak of the fallenness of this sinful world. In the midst of the valley of darkness, in the midst of the thorns, you're the pure people, the people of God. My people in the nations, that's where there's salt and light. They're the source of purity. My purity released into the nations. Beloved, even in our weakness, that purity is still there. We want it in a greater way in our everyday lifestyle, but it's all the cry of our heart to have it is already a token, an expression of its growth in our life. Paragraph C. Let's go to paragraph D. The bride's first confession was back in chapter 1 verse 5. She says, I'm dark in my heart, but I'm lovely to God. This is her second confession. She sees her life purpose. I am the rose. I'm the inheritance. I'm not just dark, but lovely because of his graciousness. I'm the rose. I'm the lily. I'm the inheritance. I'm what he wants. Not just one that he forgave. I'm the one he wants. You can see the progression in the song of her growth of understanding. Paragraph E. Our identity. And that's her identity. The rose and the lily. The one that loves him. The one that's committed to obey him. Our identity determines the way we define our value and the measure of our success. How successful are you? What is the measure of your success? Well, by nature, we measure our success by our accomplishments in the eyes of men. If we make a big impact, whatever sphere of life that we're in, if we get recognition and make an impact, we're successful. If we get money, whatever sphere we're in, if we get recognition, money, accomplishment. But he sees differently. Our identity is being the rose and the lily. When we grow in love as the rose and purity as the lily, beloved, we're more successful, unrelated to what we accomplish in the eyes of men. Our influence in the eyes of men may be decreasing, but our heart may be increasing. I got good news for you. You're actually more successful. Now we don't need to make a point of decreasing it. Some people, not many I've seen, they try to on purpose decrease everything so they feel more humble. I go, no, go for the full blessing of what God will give you, but don't measure your life by it. Measure your life by growing as the rose and the lily. Top of page 5, like an apple among the trees of the woods. Here she speaks to him. She says, I'm the rose. Then he says, I'm the rose, the lily. That's verse 1. Verse 2, he goes, you are the lily. Verse 3, they're going back and forth. Now she's talking. She goes, you're that refreshing apple tree. That is what my beloved is like among the sons of men. Among all the men of the human race, there is none other that refreshes like my beloved refreshes. The bride declared to the king that the king is the apple tree who refreshes her heart. Beloved, when you really believe he refreshes your heart more than all the others, this one truth will change marriage. I've seen a number of devout young women, they fall in love and accidentally their young husband, their young marriage, he becomes, he usurps ever so slightly and suddenly he moves into that place. The bride, the young bride, shocked that he cannot satisfy her in the way she hoped. Beloved, no matter how beloved your beloved is, there's only one who's the apple tree among the sons of men. There's only one that satisfies fully. And when we understand that it changes, we don't try to get that from a friendship. We don't get that out of a relationship. We get a secondary pleasure, not the primary satisfaction. This one issue I've seen has been paramount, whether in friendships or in marriages, getting this truth straight. I've seen many people trying to find the apple of refreshing in the primary way from another, not from him, who alone is the apple tree among the trees of the woods. Verse four, she says, I sat down in his shade. Oh, when I sat down in his shade, this is how refreshing he is, with great delight. I tell you, when he gives you delight, then you can enjoy relationships with others far better. Your friendships, your marriage, all your important relationships will have far more delight when there is a chief delight that you both share together in him. His fruit is sweet to my taste. He brought me to the banqueting table. His leadership over me is love. Then she cries out, sustain me, refresh me, for my heart is sick with love, meaning I've been touched and I want more. I long for more. The sick with love has a pain dimension, not just a feeling of satisfaction, but when the love of God touches you, there's the paradox, it satisfies you, but leaves you longing and aching for more because your capacity to experience increases. So the more love you touch, the deeper the satisfaction, the greater the longing for more love, because your capacity to experience it increases. So you're in this continual paradox of encountering, but longing ever for more. That's what love sickness is. I have a little bit more of this on the notes, on the additional notes on each of the sessions. I have another set of notes. Sometimes they're a couple days later from when I give the session on Friday night, but I talk about that a bit on that one. Paragraph C, as we sit before the Lord, we experience more of his delight, of his presence. Beloved, when we sit before him, there is no substitute for time talking to him. Your Bible open, I mean, we've got such an incredible situation with an anointed prayer room, not that you have to be in a prayer room. I don't spend all my time talking to God in the prayer room, meaning I talk to God outside the prayer room, but I mean this environment with my Bible open, an anointed worship team sitting before him, I have found many moments of great delight. Paragraph 2, Jesus declared the wisdom of Mary of Bethany's life. Jesus said she chose the good thing, the needed thing. Nobody can choose it for you. Beloved, when you choose that lifestyle, and I don't mean that's all you do all day every day, and that's the only thing you do, but this is a premier part of your lifestyle, where you're encountering him, you sit before him, you take times to develop the dialogue of your heart and his, with an open Bible talking to him, that's the Mary of Bethany lifestyle. Paragraph D, he brought me to the banqueting table. His banner, his leadership over me is love. The banqueting house, Jesus's plan for us is to lead us to the banqueting table where we celebrate his love. We celebrate his love for us, and we celebrate our love for him. Paragraph 2, the banner is his leadership, and you can read a little bit more about that. Let's go just to the final moment here, the last minute and a half or so. Page 6, well she, oh there's so much about the banqueting table and his banner over me, and I got a bit more of it on the additional notes, that his, when the enemy comes against us, and the enemy says that God has forsaken us, or things are going bad, I confess his banner over me, his leadership over me is love. He's always leading me by love, and leading me to love. Always, always, no matter what the devil says. Top of page 6, we'll just end with this. She says in verse 6, his left hand is under my head, his right hand embraces me. The left hand of God, and I have here written a bit in paragraph B, speaks of the activity of God we can't see. The left hand is under her head, she can't perceive it or see that hand, it's out of her view. God withholds many things that could harm us, and blesses us. In many ways we don't see it, I call it the left hand of God. There's so many blessings in your life today. The car wreck you didn't get killed in a year ago, that's why you're sitting here today. The left hand of God is constantly intervening the things we can't see. Paragraph C, you haven't thought about that car wreck have you? Okay, paragraph C, the right hand of God, that's what's in front of her, is the activity of God we can see. That sweet discernible blessing of God. So when she's filled with love, she begins to see the right and the left hand, begin to value both. With the paradigm of love and beauty, we have a whole new perspective of the right and the left hand of God. Then in verse 7, I see this is the Holy Spirit speaking. He says, oh daughters of Jerusalem, and I have, I describe it a little bit here, what this is about, you can read it on your own. He goes, don't disturb her, don't disturb her. And what's going on here, paragraph D, is that the daughters of Jerusalem, they don't have discernment about the operation of the Holy Spirit in a person's life. They don't know the different seasons in a person's life. There are different seasons in your life, and if you're not dialing down and just before the Lord, you'll take the last sermon you heard, or the last conversation you had, or the last Facebook exchange you had, will be what you try to do. Beloved, there's a lot of folks urging you to do stuff. The Lord says, it's not even the season you're in. Don't disturb her. I have her at the table, feeding from my, at my table, enjoying my presence. I'm building something in her and her history in God. Don't some well-meaning believer go tell her what she ought to be doing now. Leave her alone, is what the Spirit is saying. I'm building a history in her. I have many things to do with her in the days to come. And many of you are in that season. Well, you're always a season where we sit at the table, but some of you are in that season at the table more than other things. Beloved, stay in the season. I have a little bit more about this on the handout here. You can read later and again on the other handout as well, the additional one. Well, amen. Let's end with that. Let's stand. I want to lead us in prayer.