Text: Song of Songs 1:2

Title: Your love is more delightful than wine

Date: December 4, 2022 / Da Nang VEC

Introduction

What is the greatest happiness that human beings can enjoy on this
earth? To become a king and rule a country? Traveling all over the
world after making a lot of money? To live a long and healthy life?
Solomon says that it is to experience 'love'. “Your love is more
delightful than wine.” (Song of songs 1:2) Love is better than any
other pleasure in this world. Do you agree with this?

Then, Have you ever experienced true love? What exactly is true
love? And why did God give humans the feeling of love? What does
he want us to learn from this love?

It is a song about the love between a man and a woman. This is

the love song of Solomon and the Shulammite. Surprisingly, there is
not a single word ‘God’ in this book. Why is this Song of Solomon
included in the Bible? What does 'love story' included in the Bible?
This love story explains the relationship between Christ and his
bride, and we will be taught that through this sermon.

Main subject

1. What is true love?

1) The true love (that Song of Songs saying) is being able to give
everything. It is love that can even give life. It's not love if you're
mad at yourself for paying more money on a date. Song 8:6, “Love
is strong as death” God loved the world so much so he sent Jesus,
his only begotten Son, to this earth. His son Jesus loved us and gave
his life on his cross. This is true love.
 2) Love cannot be bought with money. Song of Songs 8:7 “If a man
would give all his possessions in exchange for love, he would be
despised.” Love is the greatest gift God has given to human beings
that cannot be bought with money. Therefore, no matter how much
wealth you have, you cannot enjoy happiness without love, but even
if you are poor, if you live with someone you love, singing will not
stop in your house. If you want to be happy, meet someone you
love.

3) Love overcomes any barrier of status(caste). Solomon in the

Song of Songs was a king. The woman he loved was the daughter of
a poor farmer who cultivated his vineyard. In terms of status, it is a
relationship between a king and a servant girl. However, this
difference in status could not stop their love. Rather, we see
Shulammi ascending to the status of Solomon's wife.
This is a foreshadowing that God, the Creator, can love human
beings as transcending the barriers of status. The representative love
is God came down to this earth as human beings for poor and lowly
person like me. After we met Jesus, a tremendous rise in status took
place. We became children of God and brides of Jesus. Can you
believe this amazing love? We, too, are loved ones like Shulammi.

2. The Beginning of their Love

The love between the two begins like this. There was a vineyard
own by Solomon in the hill country of Ephraim. Solomon entrusted
this vineyard to one poor farmer family. This family had no father,
but a mother, older brothers, and younger sister. Shulammi was the
first daughter of this house, but somehow she was not loved by her
brothers. This family was probably one of those troubled homes
where she lived with her half-brothers. It reminds us of Joseph, who
was hated by his brothers in Jacob's house. Shulammi was hated by
her brothers and had to work in that vineyard. Besides that, she was
farming and shepherding, so she could not look after herself. Her
face was tanned as she worked a lot under the hot Middle Eastern
sun all day. (Verse 6) She would sometimes look with envy at the
sight of her friends by her flock, dressed in clean uniforms and with
neat combed hair, going to school.
Then one day, there was a young man who looked at her Shulammi
from a distance with deep affection. He was Solomon, the owner of
this vineyard. Solomon lived in the palace of his father David, but
he used to visit this vineyard occasionally in his free time. He saw
many beautiful and white women in the palace, but from one day his
heart began to go to this darkened Shulammi. Solomon confessed
his love for her and the two begin to love each other as lovers.
Shulammi had a tiring and difficult life, but her world turned
rainbow after she met Solomon. When she thinks of him, she smiles
and feels a new energy welling up in her weary body.

Application) The Lord also saw us in that way and came to our
lives. Song of Songs 4:1-7, Solomon described the woman. In a
word, everything is pretty with him. Verse 7, “My love, you are
beautiful and without any blemish.” Are Shulammi really without
blemish? In fact, her hands are rough from farming and her face is
blackened. She is tired from working all day and there is no smile
on his face. (Song 1:6) But the man saw her as a beautiful woman
without blemish, because he loves her. Because love covers all
faults.
Out of millions people on this planet, He only saw us in love. When
a man fall in love, he sees only that girl? Solomon had 60 wives and
80 concubines, but only Shulammi was perfect woman for him. Song
of Songs 6:8-9, “Sixty queens there may be, and eighty concubines,
and virgins beyond number; but my dove, my perfect one, is
unique..”
Many people around us the Lord looked at as thorns, but paid
attention on us like lilies. Song of Songs 2:2, “Like a lily among
thorns is my darling among the maidens.” We became his saints
(church) in this way. We have become his spotless bride like this.
3. Crisis of Love - Waiting
Every love comes with a crisis. There were also two crises in this
love. One is waiting when Solomon left Shulammi and did not return
for a long time. Solomon appears in two different identities in the
Song of Songs, first as a shepherd and second as a king. (In the
book of the Song of Songs, these identities are mixed up in order,
so it is difficult to distinguish them.) It seems that he came to this
vineyard and herded sheep from time to time when he was a prince.
(Song 2:16) Because he loved the Shulammi, he probably did so to
spend more time with her. Then, one day, Solomon said to
Shulammi with a serious face. Can you wait for me when I'm away
from you for a long time? I will definitely come back and take you
some day. Then, She replied, Now my heart is only for you. I
belonged to you and you belonged to me. So, I will wait for you.
After said this, Solomon returned to Jerusalem and did not appear
at the vineyard for several years. Perhaps he had something very
important work in the palace.
Meanwhile, Shulammi missed her lover so much, and she had to
spend many days in waiting. She spends years of sleepless nights
staring at the distant sky. Will he come to pick me up? People
around her says: What reason the prince will come to pick you up?
Give up and get married to Gapdori(a boy) from that village.
However, Shulammi fell sick with an empty heart that cannot be
filled without the young man. That is why Song of Songs mentioned
that a person fell in sick by love (Song of Songs 5:8).
Then one day, a pillar of dust rises on the road in the village, and
a carriage surrounded by 60 warriors arrives in the village. (Song
3:6-8) All the villagers watch the scene with astonished eyes to see
what has happened. The carriage stops in front of the vineyard and
the Shulammi is put in the palanquin. The palanquin(carriage) was
sent for the Shulammite from Solomon after he became king.
Shulammi arrives at the royal palace and meets crowned Solomon
as king’s bride.
Application) What does it compare when shepherd Solomon become
king and come back to Shulammite? It is a foreshadow of the first
and second comings of Jesus. How did Jesus come at first to this
earth? He came as a child, born of virgin Mary. He came to this
earth in a human body. And because He loved us, He took up the
cross and completed the work of salvation. But when he come again,
will you come as a baby? No. At that time, as the Lord of Judgment,
He will come with the sound of the trumpets of the angels and the
armies of heaven. It is like a procession of carriage coming into a
village escorted by soldiers. It pictures the glorious Second Coming.
All the saints will spend a time of waiting for the bridegroom Jesus
to come again. We are going through such a time right now. Many
temptations around us try to shake us. People ridicule and penalize
us for believing in Jesus. But we must wait him with patience like
Shulammi, thinking of the Lord we will meet again. If you cannot
endure this time and abandon your faith, you will not be able to
meet the Lord who will come again. Those who do not stay awake
and prepare cannot participate in the wedding feast. Matthew 25:13,
“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the
hour.”

4. Crisis of Love second time – Cold Heart

The second crisis of love came after marriage. The bride's love has
cooled a little. In Song of Songs 5:2-3, the groom came a long way
to meet the bride in the night dew, but the bride lay on the bed and
I took off her clothes, so how can I put them on again? Verse 3, "I
have taken off my robe-- must I put it on again? I have washed my
feet-- must I soil them again?"
Application) Don't we sometimes do this to the Lord? Treat the Lord
with a lukewarm heart. But what about the Lord's love? The groom's
love has not changed. Verse 2, “My sister, my love, my dove (a bird
with only one eye), my perfect one. Open the door.” The Lord loves
us to the end.

How does the Lord act when our love cools and remains lukewarm?
Does he Kick the door and says that if you're doing like this, let us
finish today! Does he act like this in violence? Not at all. He put his
hand inside the gate, quietly smeared the doorknob with the juice of
myrrh, and disappeared. (Verse 5) Middle East culture at the time -
When a man visits his girlfriend and the woman is not at home or
does not open the door because of any reason, boy smears the
doorknob with the juice of myrrh.
Do you remember the picture of Jesus standing outside the door
knocking in the book of Revelation 3:20? He is quietly waiting for us
to open the door. He could have kicked through the door, but he
didn't do that and waited for us to open the door. what a warm
love.

Conclusion

We are people loved by God. He abandoned the glory of heaven and

came to the small planet called earth to give us life. We were poor
and tanned like the Shulammies, but He came to us with His loving
hand and made us His bride. Even after receiving this great love, we
often love our Lord lukewarmly.

The love of ordinary people is broken as the man leaves when the
woman's heart cools. However, the groom's love that appeared in
Song of Songs was different. Although her woman's heart has
cooled, he does not give up and eventually saves her from her world
where the devil rules her. “Come with me from Lebanon, my bride...
from the lions' dens and the mountain haunts of the leopards” (Song
of Songs 4:8) This is the image of God who loves the one who called
to the end. (Numbers 23:19, John 13:1) We are the people who have
received God’s unchanging love. “Your good fight is over. Come
down from the battlefield now. Now, you will rest in my paradise.”
what a gorgeous groom! Therefore, we praise the groom like this.
You are altogether lovely! (Song of Songs 5:16)
 The love of the world is imperfect. Even the love of marriage is not
perfect. We are hurt because of that imperfect love in this world.
Then, why does the Lord allow us to continue this imperfect love on
earth? The Lord gives us a little taste of God's true love through
that imperfect love. And because of that lack, he makes us long for
the perfect love that will come.
The Lord came to this earth and showed the deep love of the
cross. It was like a deep kiss for us. We have experienced the deep
love of the cross.
Those who have experienced the love of the cross cannot fill their
hearts with any other love. The only way to fill that heart is when
he comes back and marries us. We are brides waiting for that day.