Mike Bickle emphasizes the progression of spiritual maturity in the Song of Solomon, illustrating how the bride undergoes testing and trials that deepen her relationship with Jesus. He reassures believers that during times of testing, God is intimately aware of their struggles and is moved by their love and faithfulness, even when they feel abandoned. The sermon highlights that true love for God transcends feelings and circumstances, and that our responses during trials are recorded and cherished by Him. Ultimately, Bickle reveals that the Lord's heart is profoundly touched by our devotion, especially when we remain steadfast in love despite challenges.

Look at session 10. It's a 12-part series on the Song of Solomon. For those of you that are new with the Book of Song of Solomon, you're here the first time. It's an eight-chapter love song that can be interpreted first in the natural way. It shows the beauty of married love. It magnifies the beauty of married love. It's a natural love song. Eight chapters. But also you can interpret it spiritually magnifying the love of Jesus and the way that he loves his people. And it's the spiritual application that we are approaching this study. And although the other one, the natural application and the more literal, direct one, is a very, very important interpretation of this book as well. And it's an eight-chapter love song and there's a progression going on. I call it the progression of holy passion. That in the first chapter she's sincere and immature and in the second chapter she's tested and tried. The third chapter she learned some new things. In the fourth chapter each chapter she matures. There's a progression that's going on. And in our last session, in session 9, we're on session 10 right now, we looked at chapter 5. And I'm going to review it very, very briefly because chapter 6, the drama of what happens in chapter 6 is so linked to what happened, the testing of chapter 5. So though we looked at this in our last session, I'm going to take a minute to review chapter 5 just ever so quickly. Then we're going to go on and look at the Lord's response to her. Because chapter 5 was the testing she went through. And chapter 6 was the Lord's response to her testing. Now we all go through testings and I can't think of anything more important than knowing what the Lord's thinking while we're going through the testing. Because the lie of the devil, the devil comes and lies to us and tells us the Lord's not thinking anything. Matter of fact, the Lord forgot us. You know, we're on the back burner and he got busy in the kitchen and we're boiling over. Lord, Lord, turn around quick! I'm on fire, you know, it's not working. Oh, oh, oh, sorry, sorry, Mike, I forgot I had you on the burner back there. No, that's not what's happening. He's not forgotten us and that's the temptation that we feel that he has overlooked us, forgotten us, that what we're going through is for nothing. Because we can't make sense of any progress while in the testing itself. And that's the power of a testing from the enemy's point of view. I mean to really accuse us. We can't make any sense of the testing when we're in it. But chapter 6 pulls the veil back and we see what's in his heart, what he's thinking and what he's feeling when we're feeling nothing or when we're feeling terrible. And sometimes we feel really bad. I mean the pain of a testing, but a lot of times the testing is simply we feel nothing and that's part of the testing. But we find out that he feels a whole lot when we powerful desire. He's deeply engaged with us. He's watching us carefully, closely. He's moved by the way we're responding to him when we respond to him in love and in faith. We feel like nothing's happening, he's not paying attention or we feel terrible pain or anguish because he thinks he's totally forgotten us and we're all by ourself and the trial's not making any sense and it's not producing any fruit in our life. And beloved I got good news for you, that's a total lie. That whatever we're going through his eyes are on us and his book is recording our heart responses to him. And I don't mean the negative ones. I'm talking about Lord I love you, Lord I want to obey you, Lord I can't make sense of what's going on but I do love you. Those responses he's recording in his book and they move him and they matter and they actually change us. So we'll look for a moment at chapter 5, just a quick review her testing. Then we'll look at chapter 6 what he's feeling while she's tested and how he responds to her after the testing is over. So we go back review Roman numeral 1, paragraph A, the bride had prayed for both the north winds of adversity and the south winds of blessing or refreshing. Now we understand praying for the south winds, Lord bless me. But she wasn't asking for trouble, that's not what she's asking for really. She was saying Lord I so trust your leadership that if a time of testing comes I trust you. And sometimes it's the devil knocking on her door and we need to rebuke the devil and tell him to go away. But sometimes the pain of the testing is not knowing what God's feeling or not seeing his hand or not making sense of it and that's the adversity of the north wind often. It says here in Song of Solomon chapter 4 verse 16, she says awake oh north wind and blow oh south wind upon the garden of my heart that those fragrances would flow out of my heart and spiritually speaking that's the presence of God and and virtue and character that's moving to the Lord's heart and love being, growing in our heart and being manifest from us. Then she says let my beloved come to his garden and eat its pleasant fruits. Because the first four chapters if you remember of this 8 chapter love song, it's all about her life and her garden being hers. She loved Jesus but mostly for how Jesus would bless her and provide for her and we always honor that. I mean a billion years from now we'll be completely awestruck by what he gives us and what we receive from him. We'll never ever outgrow that. Forever we'll be singing worthy is the Lamb for what he did for us. We'll never ever outgrow our gratitude. But what she comes to understand that Jesus is not just a means to her end of spiritual blessing but Jesus is actually the end. He's the goal. He's the end product. Then not only do we have an inheritance in him but he actually has an inheritance in us. There's something he's waiting for from us not just something we're receiving from him. Right here she says Lord let the north and the south wind blow. I'm not gonna draw back like she did in chapter 2. I'm not gonna yield to fear. I'm gonna trust your leadership. I'm gonna take the risky steps of faith and I will endure the times when I can't understand and I will trust your leadership. Because my garden is now your garden. The garden of my heart is now yours. I understand it's yours. I belong to you not just you belong to me. Both of them are true. And it's a glorious hour in our life when the revelation comes to us not just that he belongs to us. That's a glorious hour. But another one is when we understand we belong to him for real forever and it moves his heart when we respond to him in that way. Paragraph B. Now this is the testing. The Lord comes to her in chapter 5. He comes, I call this, he's coming as the Jesus of Gethsemane. She knew the Jesus who sat at the table in chapter 1 and chapter 2. He fed her under the shade tree and refreshed her. He knew the Jesus. She knew the Jesus who was leaping on mountains. She knew the Jesus on his wedding chariot in the Palaquin in chapter 3. She knew the Jesus whose heart was ravished for her in chapter 4. But now the Jesus of Gethsemane. He comes and he says verse 2. It's the voice of my beloved. She's speaking. Telling the story he knocked and he said open for me. She goes okay I mean you're the one I love. I just asked you to send the north winds and the south winds of course whatever you want. I'll open for you. He says for my head is covered with the dew of the night. My hair or my locks with the drops of the night. So we have him in the dark night of the phrase we used last week was the dark night of the soul in terms of the believer but here he is in the dark night alone in the garden of Gethsemane is the picture from the new testament point of view and he's saying I'm here in the darkness of the night the dew of the morning is on my head and I want you to come join me in this dimension. Of who I am. I want you to touch it not that we earn or contribute anything to our salvation it's not that's not what we're talking about but as we looked at in our last session Paul called it the fellowship of his sufferings the fellowship together with him in his sufferings. Paragraph C back in chapter 5 she responded in obedience. She didn't draw back like she did in chapter 2 but she responded in obedience. She said yes I will come to you as the Jesus of Gethsemane using the new testament application of it or the spiritual interpretation and he says okay if you're going to know this then the next two things that happen is that he gives her he allows a two-fold test to test her love to test her faith and then what happens is that he withdraws his presence from her now we know from our last session and just the biblical bible knowledge he never withdraws his presence in the full sense of the word but we're talking about that discernible sense where she's feeling it and she's enjoying the sense of his presence and now she says here in verse 6 I opened for my beloved I responded to him I rose up from my bed but my beloved had turned away he was gone I sought for him and I couldn't find him she says I don't know what's happening it's not like it was just a month ago something's different it it was so fresh it was so alive it felt so strong and now it feels silent it feels cold it it feels distant now it isn't the lord's just standing back and he's saying are you in this relationship just for you are you in it for me will you love me no matter what do you only love me when things go well and you feel what you want to feel in my presence is it the feeling you're after or is it love that you're after with me because if you love me you can love me whether you feel it or whether the circumstances are working or not and if you're only after the feelings i'm gonna cause this situation to draw your love to a new level and give you an opportunity to work that faith muscle to work that that that uh uh well i'll just say it again the faith uh the faith muscle where we're uh having confidence in his leadership and confidence in his love well the second test in verse 7 the watchman struck me and they wounded me and they took my veil away from me so now she loses her ministry the leaders uh in the spiritual community the watchman they strike her and they take her covering away so she's not not only in verse 6 loses the sense of his presence she loses verse 7 the sense of her ministry and her function so everything she wanted is going bad but look how she answers in verse 8 she goes oh daughters of jerusalem if you find my beloved tell him this i'm not offended at all i'm not having second thoughts i'm lovesick tell him i love him even when it's going like this i am really in it for him yes i love his blessing and i want his blessing but when i can't see the things i saw in previous seasons i'm gonna stay steady because i actually love him no matter what i mean what a what a an amazing work of grace in a believer's heart when they come to this conclusion then she went on and said the daughters of jerusalem said how can you love him so much the way he's treating you and she said my beloved is wide he's radiant my beloved is dazzling one translation says he's chief among ten thousand he's altogether lovely i'm not offended i'm not having second guesses i'm not drawing back he is lovely to me he's chief among ten thousand he's infinite in his superiority above all the other beloveds i am lovesick he's radiant that's how i view him and the daughters are really taken back by this this extravagant response of love in such a time of difficulty paragraph d back in chapter five and we'll end the review with this the daughters asked two questions when they saw her uh with the presence of god lifted from her and the i mean again he didn't god never his presence never leaves us ever but again those discernible feelings that we can get accustomed to that in some seasons we don't have them like we had them in a previous season so they had seen her in that condition she was mistreated by the watchmen the leaders of the church well in the terms of the spiritual interpretation they mistreated her they took her ministry away it it wrongly accused her things are going bad and they ask her a question in chapter five verse nine well they asked her too but the first one they said what is your beloved more than any other beloved in other words why do you love him so much more than all the others we have other beloveds in our life that we love more than him the king but you love the king more than all the other beloveds there is no other that you love more than him it's not even your spiritual tranquility it's not your increase of ministry it's not any human relationship you love him as your chief beloved above all the others and then after she went through uh after this test and they go how can you love him why do you love him and she goes oh he's chief among ten thousand he's altogether lovely and she gives this tremendous description of his glory and his beauty that we looked at in the last session so here in paragraph e now after they hear this a remarkable description of how glorious her beloved was and how good and altogether lovely they said wow they changed their question because their first question was why do you love him so much in paragraph d but now in paragraph e in chapter six verse one they're saying how can we know him like you instead of why do you love him we want what you have they said where is your beloved no not not why do you love him where is he we want to seek him like you seek him we want what you have and so then uh now we're going to chapter six now the king breaks the silence because he'd been completely silent he'd let the the elders uh the watchmen of of the city the leaders mistreat her neglect her she lost her position he had watched her not having the same kind of feelings and the sense of favor and the circumstances but he'd been quiet all the time and he was he was carefully watching earnestly watching having deep feelings every step of the way though she could feel nothing he could feel so much i mean she couldn't feel anything positive in the sense of by what was happening in the circumstances in chapter six verse four to ten the king broke the silence the silence that began back in chapter five verse six the king breaks the silence and he tells her how he felt about her all of each step of the way during her testing and he wants her to know how he how she moved his heart this is one of the great uh statements in the song of solomon i i think of the whole bible this is one of those you know hundred of the of the top you know when you talk of the whole bible you can have a hundred favored ones there you go but here in chapter six verse four he breaks the silence and he says oh my love you are as beautiful as tears up you are as lovely as jerusalem you are as awesome as an army with banners then he says this very emotional dramatic statement verse five turn your eyes from me your eyes of devotion your eyes of love for your eyes have overcome me i mean this is not a statement of literally would you please turn around and leave the room that's not what he's saying he's talking poetically because i am overcome by the such devotion you have when what you was what you were experiencing was so difficult it was so hard it was everything opposite of what you wanted but you never backed away from me you're really in it for me not just in it for me to help you now beloved we always want him helping us to the fullness we i'm in no way uh minimizing that in another chapters of the book in the first four chapters that uh that point is made over and over and over and again forever we will want everything that he will give us and we will be fully grateful and never minimize it so that's not i'm not comparing the two i'm putting the two together i'm not comparing one verse the other i'm saying that the two together is the relationship he's after where we receive from him an inheritance and he receives from us an inheritance called our love well he starts off and he says oh my love you are as beautiful as tears up and by the way on the uh website i have additional notes i got a bit more on on all of this so you can check that out later if you want to but i just wanted to make the notes a little shorter for the class and so almost every session i have a longer session on the website with a a bit more detail on it he says uh you are as beautiful as tears up now tears though was one of the most attractive cities in the northern uh it was one of the most attractive cities in the ancient world at that time but it was the capital city up in the north because there was a civil war after king solomon and there was the southern kingdom where jerusalem was the capital city and then there was the northern kingdom and there for some years they had a war going back and forth that lasted quite a long time and at times they had peace and times they had animosity and uh tears was such a beautiful city that after solomon's day because solomon's alive writing this poem at this time it was such a beautiful city it was a canaanite city uh before joshua conquered the land with the children of israel and uh it was a capital city but then after solomon's day they made it a capital city again when after the split in the civil war took place in uh 933 bc no no i'm going through the math solomon was 970 93 yeah i think it's 933 bc is when the civil war was anyway i didn't need to do that but uh when i quote a date it's good it's good it's better to have it in my brain instead of do it on the flight okay so some see tirza as a city symbolic of the unbelieving gentiles the the the uh because it was a gentile uh beautiful canaanite city before solomon's day and so the bride some uh see this and i like this interpretation the spiritual interpretation of it and it could mean a number of things and as long as it's a new testament truth that's what really matters is that we we take the symbolism of this to honor a truth that is uh uh strongly found in the new testament but the bride is beautiful also to unbelievers and that's why unbelievers that are walking in the spirit are so effective in evangelism winning them because they see the bride's sacrificial love for the king and they see her as somebody who gave up everything for love and they see a believer like that they go who is the king you love and why do you love him i mean i want what you have is is the response and so in the spiritual interpretation of this he says you're as beautiful as tirza but even the unbelievers will look in marvel and wonder to see the beauty of who i am says the lord and who and the way that you love me it shines forth from you when you live in this kind of devotion and this kind of dedication to me even in a time of testing paragraph c he says uh top of page two he goes on he says you're you're as lovely as jerusalem now tirza was the capital city the the pagan capital city in the north before solomon's day and then it became a capital city after solomon's day as well after the division of the of the two of the tribes of israel but jerusalem was the southern capital now jerusalem is the only city that was chosen by god to put his temple in he put his temple in the city of jerusalem and of course jesus called the city of jerusalem his city in matthew chapter uh five i think verse 35 where jesus said that it's uh he called it the city of the great king in matthew chapter 5 and so it's his city because not only is that was the temple built in that city but jesus's throne will be in that city forever it is the city of the great king it's the only place on earth that god's presence was continually manifest that that was blessed with the manifest the continual manifest presence of god the manifest presence of the lord because of solomon's temple being there the shekinah glory was in that temple and the manifest presence was in the city in the temple in the holy of holies continually and so that city spoke of the presence of god that city would be will be in the millennial kingdom the worship center for the whole earth that city speaks of the beauty of holiness found in worshiping god i mean jerusalem is all about the temple and the throne of jesus the presence of god the beauty of holiness that's what jerusalem represents poetically uh in in this love song or just uh i mean anybody who understands the destiny of jerusalem you know that it's beauty it's worship it's presence it's the throne it's the king city it's everything that's beautiful spiritually and so he's saying to her you're as beautiful as tirza you have a love that even can be seen by the unbelievers that will move them you're as beautiful as jerusalem i mean you are a picture of what the beauty of holiness worshiping god looks like because you're enthralled with the king because you're so given to the king paragraph d well the king went on and added a third description he says you are as awesome as an army with banners now an army with banners was an army that returned from the battle victorious that when the army had a came uh back uh to the to the main city to the capital city after it had a great victory they had a military parade and in the military parade they would they would show all the banners they would raise them up so an army marching with the banners met they came home victorious in the battle and the whole country has gathered in the capital city and they're all celebrating the great victory so what he's saying to her in the spiritual interpretation that she defeated the greatest her greatest enemies and her greatest enemies were those in her own heart were those in her own heart i mean the people rise up and attack us the enemy comes and strikes us but as i've liked to say i've said it many times i i love this uh little uh concept that when we think of solomon's father king david that david had saul king saul angry jealous king saul pursuing him with 3 000 men to kill him i mean 3 000 men were pursuing one man david to kill him but beloved the armies of saul can't stop david the demons in hell can't stop david nobody can stop david except for david the only one that can stop david is david and when david came to understand that he had a boldness in his relationship with the lord there's no somebody can interrupt and cause a hesitation and a frustration and the will of god unfolding in your life for a brief moment but whatever your calling is whatever your ministry is whatever your sphere whatever god's ordained for you the devil can't stop it if you're what if you're in agreement with god the enemy's rising up against you you know saying this about you and accusing you that they can't stop the will of god the only person that can stop the will of god in my life is me and the only one that can stop it in your life is you i mean stop it long term in a permanent sense and that's by breaking our agreement with the lord and just giving our way to compromise or to that spirit of unbelief and fear and complaint and offense where we draw back and we say i don't trust you like i used to and that's what can stop our ministries and our destiny and the purpose of god in our life so what he's saying to her is that you've defeated the greatest enemy those in your own heart look at you you lost your ministry you lost the sense of my presence but you didn't lose your devotion to me you didn't lose your confidence in me you didn't lose your love for me you didn't lose your vision of the relationship you would have with me you didn't lose any of it look at you and she was steady she goes i'm lovesick my beloved is dazzling he's radiant his head his leadership is like finest gold he's all together lovely this is my beloved this is my friend and she went on and said much more than that she was like a victorious army with banners because she didn't give in to sin she didn't give in to unbelief and giving into sin and unbelief i don't mean stumbling we can stumble and stumble and we fall and we say wait wait a second this isn't my destiny this isn't who i am no no i'm not camping out here i'm not camping out here scripture says a righteous man falls seven times gets up so it's not the stumble that's not what we're talking about it's the staying down that is the defeat i mean uh we don't want to stumble i'm not minimizing stumbling but it's that posture of we get into that cynical uh attitude towards the lord that spirit of bitterness that we don't even know we have where we're saying jesus i don't really trust your leadership anymore not not really and i don't know that we really say that to god i mean he's so powerful and we think well i think i'm just going to hesitate for now but what we're really saying sometimes i don't trust you anymore that's what i mean camping out and letting that attitude set up and become the new way of our life because the stumble though i'm not minimizing the stumble the stumble is not the fall meaning when jesus looked at peter on the night when jesus was betrayed he said peter you're going to stumble but he said when you recover i want you to strengthen all your brothers and he really did stumble but he recovered and was a great uh i mean he was a uh had a great ministry as i mean the the chief apostle on the day of pentecost etc so the lord sees our stumble the stumble is is i take seriously but it's the camping out in the stumble that that uh constitutes a fall and that's what she didn't give into she didn't give into that attitude she didn't let that set up in her heart paragraph e then he says turn your eyes away from me because your eyes of love is the idea have overwhelmed me and again he's not literally telling her to look away to go in the other room or something he's poetically describing the impact of her love on him beloved when we feel nothing in a time of testing we don't feel his presence we can't make sense of what's happening we don't see an answer we don't see a hope on the horizon except for we believe him and we believe who he is he is deeply touched when we look to him with eyes of love in this uh next uh sentence at the end of paragraph e i just want you to put a little asterisk by it if you want to because i i want you to think on this a little bit it's very very simple but practical application of what it means to look upon him with love loving jesus includes cultivating an ongoing conversation with him in other words not drawing back an offense and saying i'm not talking anymore to you you know what i'm gonna get busy with other things i'm gonna get preoccupied with something else it's cultivating an ongoing conversation in other words we stay preoccupied with him as the point of the ongoing conversation but it's a conversation in which we express affection in the conversation and we express with affection our gratitude we thank him beloved i don't care how bad the test is we're going through or the setback we have a great deal he has given us a great deal the devil comes and tells us we're getting a bad deal that god's not treating us right beloved we're talking about the uncreated god became human because he wanted you he came to the earth he's going to be human forever by the way when he became human he didn't cast off his humanity after the resurrection he has to be human forever because he wants you he came down bore the wrath of god rose from the dead ascended to the right hand of the father freely forgave us gave us his righteousness gave us the indwelling spirit we'll have a resurrected body we'll live for billions of years in the new jerusalem on a new earth in a resurrected body in the presence of the king as his bride forever in love with him loving one another beloved we have it made we really have it made and in the 40 years i've walked with the lord i have blown it so many times i deserve not to have that but he goes no no i want you to have it like if you're going to give me what i deserve i deserve to be set aside not have the air of all of these glorious things beloved don't let the devil lie to you thinking you're getting a bad deal because the money's not coming through your ministry's not growing someone broke your heart or you have a sickness in your body i don't i don't minimize that but it's like well where's god you know i'm sick well you're good i love healing and i love walking and healing and health but beloved we're going to be in the resurrection for billions and billions of years so i don't look at him and say how dare you where are you because where am i i got scars in my hands because i want you so desperately that's where i'm at and you're going to be with me forever that's and you're i'm with you right now and then you know i've seen over the years you know moments of times rise like oh lord where are you and there's right around the corner the breakthrough comes like oh gee whiz why did i do all that talking about and then the breakthrough comes he goes there i am and i gave you more besides well it's a ongoing conversation with affection i i mean that we express our with affection we express gratitude number one number two we express our intent to obey and number three we express our trust in this leadership all three of those are different uh expressing our gratitude expressing our intention to obey him i will obey you as an expression of my love and i trust your leadership trusting his leadership moves his heart and all three of those gratitude obedience and trust are components of the of the gaze of love the the look of love it's not just obedience it's obedience with trust it's not just trust it's gratitude it's gratitude with obedience and it's all three of those with i love you i love you affection all the way through it i'm not just grateful i love you but thank you too that's how she was looking at him through this very difficult time what over comes his heart well the greatness of the stars i mean i look up at the stars and i go wow he doesn't say wow the mighty oceans the mountains the the armies of man cannot conquer him the armies of hell can't conquer him the only thing that can conquer him is the eyes of his bride who loves him and trusts him even in times of difficulty that's what moves him i mean that's the only thing that touches him in the way that even poetically could be called you overcame me and again that's poetic language he's conquered by our love he's crowned by our love and that other poetic way that we get from song of solomon chapter 3 verse 11 i mean when we trust him when we obey him when we want to go the other direction we have gratitude when things aren't working it moves him deeply paragraph g do you know the way that you move him i mean oh the marvel of moving god's heart i mean the marvel of that look at uh psalm 56 david wrote this verse 8 he said god you number my wonderings the wonderings is not good david was in sick lag at the time he was wondering he was had some compromise in his life he goes you know my wonderings he goes i know that you know my struggles instead of wonderings don't don't think of it getting you know lost in the neighborhood in a new in a new city no that's not what he's talking about he's talking about struggles and tripping and some compromise you know my wonderings and you've seen my tears of love that i don't like what i'm stumbling in and you don't say oh just deal with it and quit sitting you see my tears you don't write me off matter of fact you put my tears in your bottle and not only do you put them in a bottle you write them in the book it's like the tears coming down of failure the tears of of confusion but i love you jesus i'm not backing away and i don't understand it but i love you and the tears are coming and it's like the the picture is like the angel swoops down there and captures that tear in god's bottle that's how david's talking in this poetic sense i mean an angel doesn't really come with a bottle that's not the point but they are really written in his book and the book that he what he writes in the book is i saw the way that you reached to love me when you were wondering and struggling and no i did not write you off no i did not cast you off i did not do that i was moved by your tears i didn't call you hopeless hypocrite and i said i love the way you love me come on come near me and david said my tears you treasured them you captured them in your bottle you wrote the story in your book because it's that dear to you beloved that's the way you move him the devil is a liar i just wanted to say that he lies to us constantly he's a liar okay roman number three then uh you can read this and a little bit more on the uh additional notes if you want but now he describes her remember it's it's this agricultural setting of the ancient world and she lives in an agricultural community the shulamite maiden the bride so he's talking to her in language that of course it was familiar to the whole world in that day the whole world was living in an agricultural society so he talks to her in three different he highlights three aspects of her character her hair her teeth and her temples and uh in this he's uh talking about virtues in the spiritual application paragraph b when he talks about her hair you can read this more on your own that speaks of her dedication to god but because the hair of the nazirite vow was the outward sign of their dedication and there's more besides that there's more on why hair would mean that but that's just a a quick statement more are on the notes and then we covered the hair earlier back in chapter four as well her teeth would speak of her ability to chew the solid food of the word to receive the meat of the word her ability to uh take the word of god and receive it receive the meat of the word infants have no teeth they can only be nourished on milk it's like that's what paul the apostle talked about the milk of the word the temples it's the same word in hebrew that's often translated the the cheeks so whether it's the temples or the cheeks that speaks of her emotions and the our cheeks express our emotions whether anger or sadness or or gladness our cheeks are our windows into what's happening into our emotions and he gives her these statements in agricultural language uh that uh validate in the new again in the spiritual interpretation her character your dedication moves me the way that you live by the word moves me the way that your heart has resisted the accusations and the and and and the uh uh temptation to be offended and you stay true to me and you come after me your emotions now guys uh read chapter uh chapter six verse five here your hair's like a flock of goats don't try that don't don't tell her her teeth are like a flock of goats if she didn't grow up on the farm that's not going to move her and if she did grow on the farm it's not going to move her okay top of page three i just thought i'd just throw that out there just for fun okay just in the last two or three minutes here i'm just gonna just kind of speed through this because you have the notes here in chapter six uh verse eight and nine he's not only because he just said in verse five that uh your heart moved me my heart was moved by you and then the last couple verses we looked at your dedication moves me the way that you lean on the word receive the word the way that you resist the negative emotions and and stay steady to believe me that moves me now here paragraph a he's revealing to her her place in his heavenly court and he says in verse eight now this is king solomon in his earthly court he says i have 60 queens at that time he had 60 queens he had more before it was over i had he had 80 concubines which actually a concubine was a legally part of the king's uh family in the harem and i had virgins without numbers they were like you know the maids-in-waiting you know you've seen in through through history and royal courts and and they were servants but not quite but not a part of the family so what he's doing in paragraph b is that as a king's court uh had included his harem comprised of women with various ranks in this poem king solomon's earthly royal court symbolizes jesus heavenly court is the idea in his heavenly court it's not 60 queens and 80 concubines but it's seraphim and cherubim and mighty angels and archangels and 24 elders there's all of these ranks in the courts of heaven what uh this passage is saying jesus is saying that my bride has more honor than all the angelic ranks gathered around me i only have one bride though i have a multitude of dignified ones in my royal court around my throne but you are the only one he's talking now obviously to the whole corporate bride as as one voice you are the one i want you're the one that is mine forever let's look at paragraph i mean roman numeral five then in verse nine it highlights the bride's unique favor her unique stature and he says you are my dove my perfect one you're the only one and the word only is translated by some bibles as you're the unique one in other words compared to the seraphim the cherubim the archangels all the ranks of the angelic there's only one unique one that is my eternal companion there's only one that i've allowed to be a part of my family again it's the corporate bride i mean it's it's you know a billion or two billion hopefully more uh believers through history counting the great end time harvest it's the redeemed they are mine they rule with me forever paragraph c uh it was the writer of hebrews that said that god had crowned the redeemed with glory and honor the redeemed are crowned with glory and honor because we're not just connected to his heart we're exalted with him beloved we have an exaltation and we have a nearness to his heart forever that the angels will never have the archangels will never have i mean the greatest archangels in the seraphim don't have the relationship with god that the redeemed have they are attendants with glory and honor but beloved you have more glory and honor in god's court you're part of his family forever top of page four then goes on and we'll uh end this here in verse 10 the bride is a co-heir in the kingdom and now he's going to describe her by four by four uh heavenly objects in verse four and five he described her by earthly cities earthly objects now he's going to describe her by four heavenly objects he says not only do you move me do you have a high place of honor in my kingdom look at where your destiny is look at how i'm going to use you look at the way the glory will be manifest with you who is she who shines forth as the morning who is she that is beautiful as the moon who is she that is as bright as the sun i added different words in because other translations have those words shining as the morning bright as the sun as beautiful as the moon these four metaphors were used to express her beauty by comparing her to earth to heavenly objects so this time when it's an army with banners the context of verse 10 is the heavenly in the eternal realm not the earthly back in chapter 4 and verse 5 because the whole context of verse 10 is the heavenly dimension of her beauty and her destiny with him paragraph c she shines forth as the morning go down a few sentences this speaks of the church in this age functioning as salt and light because the morning the dawning of the morning brings the light while the the residue of the night darkness is still there and so the body of christ we're partnering with jesus even now as salt and light in the time when the the light is still shining the light of god through his people but there's still the residue of the morning darkness that uh the light is shining in context too says in paragraph d you are as beautiful as fair as the moon well in genesis 1 the moon was established by god to provide light in the night time it says in genesis 1 that he created the sun for the day but he created the moon to rule the night and again uh he's talking about you have this supernatural dimension of my grace shining through you it's supernatural it's a heavenly reality supernatural uh dimension of grace where you can actually say words and demons are moved and unbelief is overcome in the hearts of unbelievers and the goodness of god is released by your words you are like you have the beauty of the moon now the way that the moon works is the moon is merely a reflection of the sun the moon has no light of its own the moon only shines because it reflects the sun then it goes in paragraph e talks about you're as bright as the sun this is talking about the fullness of light this is a in the age to come we're not going to always just be shining light in the context of darkness but there's the day the full day is coming the fullness of light is coming and beloved the church will reflect the light of jesus even in the new jerusalem i mean when you read the passages here in revelation 21 the city of god and the people of god are so filled with the light of god that though jesus is the light also the bride and the city are just radiant with his light forever and forever the brightness and the beauty of the sun poetically speaking that is your destiny not just to shine light in this age but to be light bears forever connected with him in glory forever and forever he goes that's what i looked at you and saw when you were in that dark night wondering if i was real or one i mean wondering where i was and when you were being tested i was thinking these things about you how you move me and what your destiny is and how beautiful you are to me so beloved when you're in that dark night of testing go to chapter six and this is what he thinks about you when you can't feel anything amen and amen let's stand well i spent too much time on the first part i so love that you've overcome my heart i just camped there too long that i didn't get to have to