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CORE Evangelism School

A God Worth Knowing

Dee Casper

01 The God Who Hears and Knows

02 The Problem of Evil: Does God Care?

03 The Faith of Jesus

04 Are We In This Thing Alone?

05 A New Covenant Experience

06 Bad Religion

07 The Reminder of Your Value

09 A Matter of Life or Death

10 Unquenchable Love

12 A God Who is Always on Time

13 The Gospel in Types and Symbols

15 Last Church Standing

16 An Abundant Life

18 Why God Won’t Leave

19 Jesus Understands

17 A Voice of Reason

14 The Coming Crisis

08 Building a House for My Wife

11 A New Birth

Thank you for this privilege to come into your presence That you're coming soon God we long for that And so I just pray that as we reflect upon that topic this evening That you would stir our hearts and that we would long for that even more than we ever have.

All right, so this evening's message is entitled, Building a House for My Wife.

And as I mentioned the other day, this is not a marriage seminar, and I'm not married, so that's not what this is about.

I'm not opposed to such things, by the way.

Anyway, what we're going to be addressing this evening is the fact that the grand narrative of Scripture regarding the second coming is couched in the context of a wedding.

That the grand arch narrative of Scripture regarding the second coming is a marriage.

Jesus is coming again to claim His bride and to take her back to live with Him forever.

What better place to start talking about marriage than the Song of Solomon?

You ever heard of the Song of Solomon in a sermon?

It doesn't happen very often, but praise the Lord.

Song of Solomon, may say Song of Songs, and if you've got a really interesting Bible, it may say Canticles.

Not to be confused with a derogatory statement of someone's lower extremities.

Maybe you didn't get that joke, but I did.

Roman, Song of Solomon, Song of Solomon, moving on now.

Song of Solomon chapter 8 and beginning in verse 6.

If you can't find it, Song of Solomon chapter 8 and beginning of verse 6.

It says this, Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death, jealousy as cruel as the grave, its flame are flames of fire, a most vehement flame.

And We'll come back to that statement in just a moment.

It says, "'Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the floods drown it.

If a man would give for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly despised.'" and listen to this.

The brothers of the soon to be bride say, we have a little sister and she has no breasts, but what shall we do for our sister in the day that she's spoken for?

If she is a wall, we will build upon her a battlement of silver And if she is a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar.

And she says, I am a wall and my breasts are like towers.

But then she closes by saying, then I became in his eyes as 1 who found peace.

Now many scholars, not many scholars, but there are scholars who wrestled with this.

Even Martin Luther wrestled with, what on earth is this like erotic love song doing in the midst of sacred scripture?

Like, they just use the B word twice in a sermon, and I'm already uncomfortable.

Well, here's the entire point of the Song of Solomon.

In short, it's about the son of David and his pursuit of his bride.

Now, who else is referred to as the son of David?

And so this whole love song is teaching us something about God's love and pursuit of his church, of his people.

So it's about the pursuit of the son of David for his bride in their eventual wedding.

But listen to this regarding verse 6 of our previous verse here.

Just as the grave does not give up its dead, so intense love will never give up the beloved.

And when it says a most vehement flame, it's best translated literally the very flame of Yahweh himself or the Lord.

This expression, reserved for the thematic climax of the entire song, reveals that Yahweh is the true source of human love and thus provides the basis for the typological interpretation of the song.

When it says, we'll go back to that verse so you can see it, it says, Jealousy is as cruel as the grave, its flames are flames of fire, a most vehement flame.

This is speaking of the love that God has for his people.

It's this unquenchable love, this insatiable love that God is so intensely pursuing and caring towards his people that nothing can stop that.

But that it closes again by saying, Then I became in his eyes as 1 who found peace.

Now, the name Solomon is actually the Hebrew male equivalent for the word peace.

For instance, if you've noticed, if you've ever seen if you've ever been watching the series The Chosen, for instance, or you've interacted with Jewish people or seen Jewish movies or so forth, and they greet people with the greeting Shalom, they're wishing peace to these individuals.

Solomon's name literally means peace, and the Shulamite, the bride of Solomon, the bride to be, her name is the female equivalent of peace.

And the point is that when she gives in to his pursuing love of her, This is what brings an abiding peace.

When peace and peace come together, this is what brings that abiding peace into the heart.

And the point here is this, that when the bride of the son of David responds to his pursuing love for her, this is the only thing that can bring her peace.

And the same is the case for you and I this evening.

The only thing that's truly going to bring us peace is not making more money, is not getting more success, is not climbing the corporate ladder.

The only thing that can truly bring peace into the depths of our soul is responding to the pursuing love of God.

Now, I want to cover now a series of verses in Ezekiel chapter 16 that's an interesting illustration.

God uses this strong emotional language again referring to his pursuing love for his bride.

Ezekiel chapter 18, 16 actually, Ezekiel chapter 16 and beginning in verse 4.

Okay, speaking of, he's using an illustration here, but he's speaking of a child that's been thrown on the side of the road, that's been abandoned, freshly born child, and that's thrown into a ditch and left and abandoned.

Says, as for your nativity on the day that you were born, your navel cord was not cut, nor were you washed in water to cleanse you.

You were not rubbed with salt nor wrapped in swaddling clothes.

No, I pity you." In other places it says that no 1 loved you in other translations.

To do any of these things for you to have compassion on you, but you were thrown out into the open field when you yourself were loathed on the day that you were born.

Just imagine a precious innocent child born into the world and instead of being loved and cared for and nurtured, it's tossed into a field and abandoned.

Not properly cleaned, not properly cared for, it's devastating.

Well, imagine how the child's going to feel later in life hearing this story.

But he continues in verse 6, but when I passed by you and saw you struggling in your blood, I said to you in your blood, live.

I made you thrive like a plant in the field and you grew and matured and became very beautiful.

Your breasts were formed, your hair grew, and you were naked and bare.

And when I passed by you again, verse 8, and looked upon you, indeed your time was the time of love.

I'm so thankful for this, that when no 1 else seems to care for us in this world and we're left to fend for ourselves.

We're not nurtured, we're not looked after.

There's a God in heaven who does take notice.

And he nurtures, he loves, he believes, he cultivates into this precious dear soul and it grows into a beautiful being.

When I passed by you again and looked upon you, indeed, your time was a time of love.

So I spread my wing over you and covered your nakedness.

Yes, I swore an oath to you and entered into a covenant with you and you became mine, says the Lord God.

And you know, our situation is very similar in this world.

We are unloved in the sense of the fact that no 1 can love us and fill us as God can.

And some of us have deep emotional wounds in our lives today because we didn't know that going into life.

I'm not going to ask you to raise your hands, but many of us can understand that.

Series

A God Worth Knowing

08 Building a House for My Wife

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

The Shadow’s Light

Building a House for my Wife

52m

The Final Call

4- What will it Take?

1h

Jesus On Prophecy

The End of Secrets, Watching and Waiting

49m

Sound Asleep

46m

Even At the Door

1h 10m

Plenary

Truth Only

51m

The Sanctuary, God's Answer to the Sin Problem

Why Jesus Waits

1h

A Call to Revival

Building a House for My Wife

56m

Restoration 2006: Prepare Me

The Ultimate Thanksgiving: Family Friends Forever

1h 14m

Plenary

Worship the Creator

53m

Keys of Revelation

15. The Return of the King

1h

Restoration 2025: Revelation Speaks Life

The Fire of His Love

1h 3m

Sound Doctrine