(THE BELOVED) 4:12 A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed. 4:13 Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates with pleasant fruits, fragrant henna with spikenard, 4:14 Spikenard and saffron, Calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices-- 4:15 A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon. (THE SHULAMITE) 4:16 Awake, O north wind, and come, O south! Blow upon my garden, that its spices may flow out. Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its pleasant fruits. (THE BELOVED) 5:1 I have come to my garden, my sister, my spouse; I have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk. (THE POET or perhaps GOD, speaking to the couple) Eat, O friends! Drink, yes, drink deeply, O beloved ones! Have you ever heard of Bernard of Clairvaux? He lived in the 12th century, and the hymn "Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts" is attributed to him.
Jesus, thou joy of loving hearts,We could apply that verse to marriage. For many, the joys of marital companionship are "the best bliss that earth imparts." Yet even that does not truly satisfy apart from a faith relationship with Jesus: "from the best bliss that earth imparts, we turned unfilled to Thee again." That is so true and so beautifully said. But the hymn "Jesus, Thou Joy of Loving Hearts" is not why I am mentioning Bernard of Clairvaux. I am mentioning him because of his sermons on the Song of Solomon. When he died, he had preached 86 sermons in a sermon series on the Song of Solomon, and he reached only the end of the second chapter. My goal is much less ambitious. I am reading these few verses from the Song of Solomon as an introduction to my sermon for today, "True Love Waits."
thou fount of life, thou light of men,
from the best bliss that earth imparts
we turned unfilled to thee again.Our passage today is a delicate poetic reference to that experience we today call the honeymoon. We read in chapter 3 verse 11 that Solomon, the bridegroom, is wearing "the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, the day of the gladness of his heart". This is not the regal crown but the crown of honor, either made of silver and gold or consisting of a garland of flowers, worn by the bridegroom on his wedding day. Thus we read in Isaiah 61:10 that the bridegroom decks himself with a turban or a garland, and the bride adorns herself with jewels. In chapter 4 verse 1, the beloved says to his bride, "You have dove's eyes behind your veil." The traditional Jewish bride was well veiled. We read in Genesis 24,
In our passage today, the bridegroom has on his crown and the bride has on her veil. It is their wedding day, the day they enter into the covenant commitment of marriage. And after the commitment comes the time of intimacy with God's blessings. God looks upon the newly wedded couple and says, "Eat, O friends! Drink, yes, drink deeply, O beloved ones!" (5:1). As it says in Hebrews 13:4:
64 Then Rebekah lifted her eyes, and when she saw Isaac she dismounted from her camel; 65 for she had said to the servant, "Who is this man walking in the field to meet us?" And the servant said, "It is my master." So she took a veil and covered herself. 66 And the servant told Isaac all the things that he had done. 67 Then Isaac brought her into his mother Sarah's tent; and he took Rebekah and she became his wife, and he loved her. ... It is in this context that the newly married bridegroom rejoices that his newly wedded wife has been a locked garden and a sealed fountain. The locked garden is one that is closed to all but the rightful owner. The sealed fountain is one that is shut against all impurity. The garden and the fountain have been associated with each other ever since that garden in the land of Eden which we call paradise. For we read that a river went out of Eden to water the garden. Paradise was a well watered place. In the first psalm, it is the tree planted by the river of water whose leaf does not wither and which bears its fruit in its season. The garden and the fountain go together, and the bridegroom calls his beloved a locked garden and a sealed fountain. The bridegroom on this special night rejoices that his bride has been for all these many years a preserved paradise, a well guarded garden of Eden; that his bride has preserved the sensual pleasures of this metaphorical garden and the bracing refreshment of this poetic fountain. She has preserved it from all intrusion, from all desecration, from all impurity. And she has preserved it for him, even from before she knew who he was. He has the privilege and the pleasure of opening the lock and breaking the seal and being the first to experience this garden of delights and this spring of ecstasy.
4 Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; ... The message of the locked garden and the sealed fountain is, True Love Waits. The reason true love waits is because true love is a deep commitment to another person and that person's genuine good. But our own culture is drowning out that message with its own message. Our culture views true love not as a selfless commitment to another, but as a feeling. The only commitment our culture knows is commitment to self. Our culture says, "If it feels good, do it." Our culture says, "It feels so right, it can't be wrong."
Today I want to look at two reasons why the Bible is right and our culture is wrong. These two reasons are The Joy of Companionship, and The Security of Commitment.
You might remember that in an earlier sermon, we defined marriage as the covenant of companionship. The basis for that definition was Malachi 2:14, where the wife of one's youth is defined as one's companion and one's wife by covenant. Therefore marriage involves companionship and covenant commitment, and these are the reasons true love should wait.
First, let's look at the joy of companionship. A wife should be more than a sexual partner. She should also be a man's companion, his friend, his associate, his closest colleague in life. For this reason, when a man and woman are trying to determine if they should marry one another, they need to determine if they are true companions, true friends. To do this, the couple need to get to know each other as friends before they know each other as lovers.
When a conductor prepares his orchestra for a concert, he leads them in tuning their instruments, and he always does this in a deliberate order. He always starts with the most delicate stringed instruments, and he always ends with the loudest brass instruments. Why does he do this? Why does he always tune the orchestra in that particular order? Because if he started tuning the orchestra with the loudest brass instruments, he would never be able to hear the softer instruments in order to tune them. They would be drowned out by the louder instruments.
Couples contemplating marriage need to follow the same principle. They first need to determine if they are in tune in the softer, more delicate areas of life: the spiritual, the intellectual, the aesthetic. Do they have common commitments, common purposes, common joys, common interests? They will never know if they begin their relationship with the loud and bold brasses of the physical, the hormonal, the glandular.
In preparing for marriage, it is important to begin on the right note. It is important to begin with establishing companionship. The physical is going to lose some of its novelty over time, and the hormonal is going to tone down over the years. If the physical and the hormonal are the total basis of the marriage relationship, then this toning down over time is truly tragic. But if the marriage relationship is first and foremost an affectionate companionship, then the physical always remains significant and exciting as an expression of that affection. In fact, the total marriage experience deepens over time, instead of diminishing, as the affectionate companionship grows and matures over the years.
A person who doesn't begin tuning the orchestra of courtship with the delicate and softer wind instruments will not really get to know the person he is courting. He won't be able to hear the delicate strings and the reed instruments and the flutes over the loud blast of the brass instruments. He will end up imagining a fantasy personality, and he will not get to know the real person until after the wedding is over.
Four of the most tragic words in Scripture are "Behold, it was Leah." Jacob was in love with Rachel, and he worked seven hard years for her father to earn her hand in marriage. But Laban, her father, deceived Jacob. Instead of giving him Rachel's hand in marriage, he gave Jacob Leah's hand. And because of the heavy wedding veil, Jacob did not know the difference. And so we read in Genesis 29:25:
Too many people today never really get to know the person they are marrying as a total person. They think they are marrying a Rachel. But one day, after the wedding, they will wake up and realize, "Behold, it was Leah."
25 So it came to pass in the morning, that behold, it was Leah. True love should wait because of the joy of companionship. True love should wait so a couple can get to know each other as friends before they know each other as lovers. And the second, even more important reason true love should wait is the security of commitment.
Intimacy belongs in the security of commitment provided by the wedding vows. Modern dating customs, in contrast, promote insecurity. A young man and woman become emotionally attracted to each other, and they decide to go steady. Too often they think that the commitment of going steady justifies their taking some liberties with each other. But the commitment of going steady is really no commitment at all. It is not a "till death do we part" commitment. It is a "till the feelings die" commitment, a commitment that is only as strong as the emotional bond and the hormonal chemistry. So a couple goes steady, the infatuation fades away, the couple breaks up, and each looks for someone else as their new steady. That is not a preparation for marriage. It is a preparation for the culture of divorce.
What a young person should do is to establish friendships with other Christians. And if a young man becomes attracted to a young lady as his possible future wife, he should try to get to know her well enough for them to make this most important decision, and yet not so well that there will be regrets if they decide not to get married. The young man should do this with the permission and blessings of the young lady's family.
Just this past week, I got a haircut, and I overhead something a young married man told his barber. He said that when he first met the father of the girl he would later marry, he told the girl's father about his hobby of fixing up old cars. The father then asked the young man if he could borrow his keys and take his car for a drive. The young man replied, "No, I can't do that. I just met you and hardly know you, and I have worked a year and a half on that car." The father replied, "I have invested a lot more than one and a half years in my daughter. You need to treat her well." The man said he understood and was careful to have the man's daughter back at home that night by the time he had said.
If a young man and a young woman really care for each other, really want the best for each other, then they will not put the cart before the horse in their relationship. In this context, the horse is commitment and the cart is intimacy. It is very important that the horse of the covenant commitment, the wedding vows, goes before the cart of intimacy. Intimacy needs to be expressed not in the insecurity of an "as long as the chemistry lasts" relationship, but in the security of a "till death do we part" relationship.
1 Corinthians 13 is called the chapter of love, and there we learn that true love suffers long and is kind; true love does not seek its own; true love endures all things.
A young man's decision that the commitment of marriage must come before intimacy is proof that his love is sacrificial, that her good is his highest goal, that he wants to protect her from pain and harm and injury, that he wants what is best for her even if that does not involve him. This same true love which produces patience in the male before the wedding will produce marital loyalty after the wedding. The young man who pressures a young woman for intimacy before commitment is putting his own pleasure before her true good.
A young woman's decision that the commitment of marriage must come before intimacy is proof that she is not seeking to control the relationship, proof that she does not view her physical attraction as a means of getting her way. This same true love which produces patience in the female before the wedding will produce respectful submission after the wedding.
It is no accident that couples who wait are statistically much more likely to have a successful marriage.
God has given us the gift of sexuality, and it is good when used in the right place. Fire is another gift God has given us. Life would be hard in many ways without the gift of fire, but fire is good only when used in the right place. If someone makes a fire in your fireplace on a cold day, that is good. If someone builds a bonfire in the middle of your living room, that is bad. As it says in Hebrews 13:4:
4 Marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled; but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Allow me to conclude now with one last thought. We have seen today the Biblical wisdom in delaying marital intimacy until after entering into the marital commitment. We have seen the Biblical wisdom in keeping one's garden locked and one's fountain sealed until after the wedding day. But what about those whose garden has been invaded and whose spring has been polluted? Well, God is never going to say that what you have done is right and good. God is never going to lower His standard. But if you come to Christ, God is going to say, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool" (Isaiah 1:18). Jesus also will deliver you from your sinful ways. He will empower you to lock up your garden, to get it in order, and to prepare yourself for your future spouse.
Do you remember Rahab in the book of Joshua? She was once called Rahab the harlot. She certainly had not kept her garden locked. Yet one day the fear of Jehovah came into her heart, and she committed herself to the living and true God. God forgave her and redeemed her and delivered her. And later she married Salmon, and she became an ancestor of King David and ultimately an ancestor of Jesus Christ. Rahab is found in the New Testament in the genealogy of Christ in Matthew chapter one and in the hall of faith found in Hebrews chapter 11. And she is mentioned along with Abraham in James chapter two as an example of one whose works demonstrate the validity of their faith.
If there was hope for Rahab, there is hope for us. We may have our moral spots and blemishes and wrinkles, but we read in Ephesians 5:
"... Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish."