The first reading is taken from songs of songs chapter 4, and this can be found on page 680 in the Church Bible. That song of songs beginning to read at the first verse. How beautiful you are on my darling. Oh, how beautiful. Your eyes behind your veil are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from Mount Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep just shorn coming up from the washing. Each has its twins, not one of them is alone. Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples behind your veil are like the halves of a pomegranate. Your neck is like the tower of David, built with elegance. On it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. Your two breasts are like two forms, like twin forms of a gazelle that browse among the lilies. Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of mud and to the hill of incense. All beautiful you are on my darling. There is no floor in you. Come with me from Lebanon, my bride. Come with me from Lebanon. You send from the crest, from the crest of a manor, from the top of Cinea, the summit of Hermann, from the lion's den and the mountain haunts of the leopards. You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride. You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride. How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice. Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride. Milk and honey are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon. You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride. You are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. Your plants are an orchid of pomegranates, with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with mure and alloys and all the finest spices. You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water, streaming down from Lebanon, a wake north wind, and come south wind, glow on my garden that its fragrance may spread abroad. Let my lover come into his garden and taste its choice fruits. I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride. I have gathered my mure with my spice. I have eaten my honeycomb and my honey. I have drunk my wine and my milk. Eat, O friends, and drink. Drink your fill, O lovers. First let me start this evening's sermon by thanking Linda for the way she read that lovely poem there from the song of songs chapter 4. Tonight I'll call the sermon The Wedding. Let me start with a modern poem describing something similar, one of Rod Stewart's most well-known songs goes like this. Kick off your shoes and sit right down, loosen off that pretty French gown. Let me pour you a good stiff drink, cool baby, don't you hesitate. Tonight's the night, going to be all right, I love you girl. Ain't nobody going to stop us now? Come on angel, my hearts on fire, don't deny your man's desire. You'd be a fool to stop this tide, spread your wings, and let me come inside. Don't say a word, my virgin child, let all your inhibitions run wild. The secret is about to unfold upstairs before the night's too old. Tonight's the night. Many, many poems have been written about that first night. Sadly these days poems about the first night really often make no mention of marriage at all. Because for them so many the first night is simply a description of the first full sexual experience. What a difference there is between that song and the song of songs in the Bible. Essentially Rod Stewart is describing the same event in a man and a woman's life that is described in song songs chapter 4. And yet the mystery, the beauty of sexual intimacy which is there in the Bible is replaced by the modern song with a starkness and a seduction that seems to be taking an unwilling virgin into something she is not at all sure she really wants. She even needs a good stiff drink to go through with it. What a difference there is there from that couple and the couple in this greatest love poem of all time. Here too in chapter 4 there is an explicit that for many years very sadly people considered offensive. And yet in this chapter there is to a sense of awe and mystery and wonder that is maintained. Here of course we know what has gone on before. The couple have wooed each other. We've seen this over the last couple of weeks. They've come to love each other with tremendous intensity. They've admired each other's beauty, talked and communicated with each other, spent time together but they've waited for each other as well. Waited till the time is right for their love to be consummated. There's been strong drink in this poem as well but not used by the lover to reduce the girls inhibitions. The wine that this couple have drunk is their love. Look back to chapter 1, verse 2. Your love-making is more delightful than wine. Or verse 4 of chapter 1, we will praise your love more than wine. We'll look on to the passage we read this evening, chapter 4, verse 10. How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride? How much more pleasing is your love than wine and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice? You see even in those days they knew the link between wine and sex. And yet what they're saying in this poem specifically is that wine isn't needed with love like this. They're intoxicated with their love for each other. And at last in this passage the lovers are together. The end of chapter 3 has described the great wedding carriage and the celebration of the whole town. Verse 11 talks of this day of his wedding, the day his heart rejoiced. So let's look then in a little more detail at chapter 4. Here for the first time at any length the man speaks. And with the exception of verse 16 this part is his poem, his description. And on this their wedding night he takes the initiative. She's ready, no forcing, just love for his wife. He speaks to her, he whispers to her, explains that her beauty until she invites him to take her. Just look back a moment in chapter 1 verses 9 to 11 because there you remember the lover described the girl's beauty. He described her cheeks and her neck. And then in chapter 2 verse 14 he again talks of her beauty and her lovely face. But now in this passage her modesty has still preserved at least for a while. Her veil is still there in verses 1 and verse 3 her wedding veil. But not for long. For now he begins to see her body in the way she had preserved for the one who would be her husband. He describes her eyes again in verse 1 and her hair. And again remember we have to accept the imagery as from a different culture. Put your own imagery in its place. Verse 2 your teeth are sparkling clean and white like a flock of newly shorn washed sheep. They are perfectly matched and none is missing. It sounds extremely strange to our ears. I can't really imagine saying to Sharon that her teeth are sparkling white like a flock of newly shorn and washed sheep. But you see his whole imagery is taken from what he thinks is so beautiful from the pastoral context of Israel and Lebanon. And so he takes the most beautiful images that he can imagine and applies them to her. Follow the text through. Your lips are rounded and red and your mouth is lovely and inviting. Your temples are rosy like slices of pomegranate behind your wedding veil. And then his eyes move down her body to what he has not seen before or described before. And again he describes her beautiful neckline first. And the wonderful jewelry hanging around it. And in those days there would have been great bands of jewels and beads and plateclips hanging around the girl's neck as the bride. And as his eyes move down he sees her beautiful breasts. And he describes their tenderness. And perhaps we can catch this metaphor a little bit more easily. He describes their tenderness like the tenderness and beauty of two young forms playing among the Linus. And then he says in verse 6, I will go to the mountain of Mer and to the hill of incense. Well, you remember back in chapter 1 verse 13 that is exactly what she'd longed for him. She had talked of him resting between her breasts like the sachet of Mer or perfume that she would put there to attract him. And as he looks at her breasts he now tells her he wants just this to touch her. And verse 7 to enjoy her flawless body. Certainly this is an erotic description. And is it not a crude one? How different it is isn't it from most of today's poems and films and novels where descriptions are so often so crude? But one thing we need to understand all of us as Christians from this biblical poem is this. But an erotic description in the right context of marriage and the love of lovers brought together for life by God is not wrong. As the husband looks at her body then so he talks of her in verse 8 as his bride. And here he uses that term bride for the first time. From verse 8 in the next ten verses he talks of her as his bride six times. And yet the word is only used in the whole Bible, 25 times. And in fact he only uses it in this chapter in the Song of Songs and chapter 5 verse 1. This is the wedding night. It's as if he can't get over the fact that at last she is his bride. It's interesting here that in the Hebrew the word for bride uses the same letters as the word for the verb to complete. And clearly as the poet writes as the lover writes he has in mind the fact that in his bride both she and he find completion. A find fulfillment some people have said that perhaps that's where the word bride actually comes from that it really was related to the word complete. Certainly what we have here in practice is a working out of Genesis chapter 2, isn't it? Here's an exposition if you like of the end of Genesis chapter 2 in practice. Here the two become one flesh. They meet and they find the completeness for which God has brought them together, the one fleshness that married couples know. Well then the writer goes on and uses geographical terms which come from the north of Israel and no doubt from modern day Lebanon where his bride comes from. And you see what's happening is all of the descriptions are adding to the message that for him she is beautiful. The beauty and the eye of the beholder for him she's flawless for him she is beautiful for him she's like the tallest mountain in Lebanon she's whatever thing beautiful he can imagine in the nature around. One of the words perhaps we find strange here that he uses of her is that word sister he calls her his sister. I don't know quite how to put that into a sort of dynamic equivalent today. The word sister really is another common term of endearment, common term of love in biblical times we find it there in verse 9 and through the passage. Somebody suggested to me that the word soulmate might be the same idea and perhaps that's a good example. It's that intense relationship that tremendous closeness that he now feels to her as if she were his sister and then he goes on it takes just one glance of her eyes just one gleam of a jewel on her neck to turn him on. Or as the Hebrew says to arouse his heart and then in verse 11 he looks again at her lips he smells her perfume and as no doubt he removes her garments so he smells the fragrance verse 11 of her garments and how he desires her this is what they've been waiting for. And yet the passage describes her now as a virgin. She's a garden locked up it's interesting that throughout history through thousands of years of literature in many many different cultures a woman's virginity has been described in these terms of unlocked garden or something that is sealed up. And he longs you see in this passage to consummate their marriage he wants to enter and talks in verse 13 of the garden in terms of choice fruits and wonderful perfumes again he thinks of everything that is beautiful and the things that he wants most. Verse 12 she is a barred spring a seal fountain no one has yet been to this fountain that's like a well of flowing water in its freshness verse 15 you can imagine the picture here of a beautiful spring flowing down the mountains of Lebanon something totally fresh totally new. A description of what he most once and at last last she responds no strong drink needed here like there was in that poem that Rod Stewart gives us no strong drink needed here for her to make love she's pleased to let him see her she too has been longing for this time as we saw last week you remember in chapter three verse one where she lies on her bed and has been night after night. Longing for him longing for this very occasion this is what she's been waiting for and now she summons in verse 16 the winds to make her fragrances even more exciting for him and entices him to consummate the marriage for four chapters the poem has been building up to this point. For months the lovers have been building up to this point in their courting they've been building up to their marriage and to making love fully and completely if you're not married but hope that one day God will lead you to marriage listen to the poem. Listen to those words do not arouse or awaken love until it's so desires that is until the time is right until God's time pray that God will lead you to the right person. Look only for a person of faith as we're told in so many other places of the Bible that we should do and then let that love develop gradually in its own time wait for marriage and then you'll look forward with enormous anticipation and great joy to letting your one and only bride or husband take your virginity and how far removed will be the joy of your experience then from the experience that Rod Stewart described in that song but I think one of the saddest things today is that what he described is the experience of hundreds of thousands of modern couples who aren't really lovers at all. You see when true love takes over the love that God wants between an amount and a woman love that reaches fulfillment in marriage then there's no fear of the sort, the sort that perhaps needs a stiff drink or that worries about losing virginity there's no fear of that for this sort of love does indeed cast out fear. But really this section isn't quite finished yet it concludes in chapter five verse one and the lover speaks again he has come into his garden yes her body now belongs to him and his to her he has enjoyed her like eating honey yet the language is still symbolic isn't it it's still delicate there's still somehow the air of mystery around all of this the reader does know we all know don't we exactly what the couple have been doing and yet how they did it the practical details the words they spoke to each other the details is theirs and theirs alone for God has brought the two of them together to know each other in a way that nobody else will or should ever know. Either often and the Bible picture preserves that it's a description of their physical love and yet it's subtle and yet it doesn't give the detail in the way in which the whole world comes to know in so much modern writing and films for that is for the couple alone to enjoy and to know for us the readers there is simply the knowledge that this couple have just enjoyed a most wonderful first sexual experience as a couple brought together by God in marriage and then it's over except for the last sentence in verse one of chapter five which is spoken by the friends I imagine again the daughters of Jerusalem that we've met before they keep interfering just at important points at this in this time and they say eat oh friends and drink drink your fill oh lovers for all that what we have witnessed is the most personal and intimate time for a couple yet that very time has been public knowledge it's been urged on by those around and we need to recognize there's a huge difference as well in cultures here even in modern traditional Palestinian weddings the weddings ceremony will go on the party will go on for one two or even three days even in this generation and at some point in those three days the two parents on each side will get together and they'll say well maybe our couples are youngsters now should consummate their marriage and so they point them to a particular room that's been set apart from for them and then they send them there and everybody in the area in the party that's going on know exactly what's going on and the couple are expected to go in there and not come out until they've done what they're supposed to have done well very very different from our own culture isn't it we wouldn't dream of doing that but the point is you see as these friends these daughters of Jerusalem speak they're part of it drink your fill oh lovers it's not that they witness the consummation of the marriage but they know and they encourage what is going on because marriage is a public act it was public right back there you remember in Genesis chapter 2 verse 24 when we're told that a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they will become one flesh mother and father knew the children left their home the surrounding people knew because a new home was set up in the community now sometimes I've been asked by Christians whether they need to get married if they know they love each other and are prepared to make promises to life for each other and I don't think when people ask that question genuine it's our place to say well are your promises really genuine can you trust them let's assume that they do want to make such promises for life and we'll keep them then they ask is a marriage service really necessary well I have to say a marriage means thousands of pounds as so many here in Hartford do then it's certainly not necessary but a public statement is and in this culture that public statement is made in a legal way before a registrar who announces it on a public notice board or through bans read in church and that is necessary but why well here again we touch on what we'll be looking at in more detail another time but don't forget God chose that marriage would become a picture of his love for his people a very inadequate picture a poor picture a fallible picture but nevertheless a picture it would always be an imperfect and pale reflection of God's love but in marriage as the couple become one flesh they're in that most intimate and profound expression of love that human beings can ever know there would lie a reflected pale but significant picture of the depths of God's love for us and that love of God for us has to be made public we proclaim that love for us and therefore God asks that in this picture of his love we picture the proclaiming as well we tell the world of our intention to live together for the rest of our lives and that picture you see goes through in a number of areas of marriage God is one and there is only one face that is true and held by the church therefore in this inadequate but beautiful picture there will be only one husband and one wife God remains faithful you remember forever to his covenant love for his bride the church therefore marriage must be forever this passage in the song of songs of course doesn't describe all that background for that we have to turn elsewhere in a scripture but the passage has assumed it as it describes the wonder of an ideal marriage for those who are married this evening this passage is a special challenge do you need to restore some of that passion and intimacy all married couples have to work at this there are no shortcuts just as there are no shortcuts to developing a closer life with Jesus husbands do you look at your wife's body still with the eyes of that first night where are your eyes strained to other women wives do you still so long for your husband that today you can identify with the words of the beloved in those opening three chapters do both of you still long for physical completion in the way this poem talks of work at love making for it is God given for many others here tonight who for one reason or another are not are not and perhaps will not be in the position of these lovers be like the daughters of Jerusalem rejoice with Christian couples in their marriage teach them where you can and yes I do believe that single people who know their scriptures can teach married people even about these things teach them where you can and speak to them of this love that the Bible describes and pray for them pray especially that Christian marriages will be better reflections of Christ's love for his people and pray prayer especially for many many couples whose marriages are going through difficult times yes Christian couples too and let's all pray above all that we can help win back sex and sexuality and the beauty of the marriage relationship from those in this world who spend their whole time exploiting sex to starting it and perverting it for their own foolish and greedy ends was an area of witness to God's creation this is but also a witness to the love of Jesus who loved us so much that he laid down his life for all who would believe in Him and finally let's remember again that if we sin and we are sinners and we are fallible if we sin in this area of sexuality and relationships that love of Jesus for us is unconditional and anyone no matter what they sin can find true forgiveness in Him let's remember that by the power of God's Holy Spirit at work within us relationships can be restored and we can begin to work again towards God's ideal in a few minutes as we come to confession we'll read a song written by David when he repented of his sin his sexual sin with Bathsheba he went on to have a loving and wonderful and fulfilling relationship with his wife but let's pray. Father God we thank you so much for giving us in creation the wonderful creation of marriage the wonderful fact that men and women can get together in this way and not be embarrassed but enjoy part of your creation together help us all to honor marriage as we should in Jesus name our men