Song of Songs Verse 5 - Poor In Spirit To Kingdom

Hidden Treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Moving further into the love story, we get to dig around into verse five today in the first chapter of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon and our quest to discover what these statutes are and to meditate on that idea of the love story between us and God, which is what the Song of Songs is in so many different ways as we talked about in the last couple of episodes, how amazing it is that his name is a perfume poured forth. Then we're gonna love, remember our love more than wine.

It's just beautiful stuff. But today's verse in English is quite a lesson. So I am black. It's verse five.

I am black but comely. Oh, ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kadar as the curtains of Solomon. So wow, this is definitely a study in contrast with the idea of being, you know, you go from rich to poor, or really, it's almost an exercise in Matthew five, like if you think about it, that you go from poor to the kingdom of heaven, right?

Because if you think about these tents of Kadar, you know, these are the poor Bedouin Arabs that are running around. And the next thing you know, you're, you know, have the curtains of Solomon, which is just again, a study from coming from a low place to a high place. And the idea of being black has to do with mourning. And the idea of the second of the Matthew five beatitudes, right? Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Well, you know, that idea of being of mourning has to do with our sin.

And so it's very much telling our story. And so you can't ever wonder why do they say why is the beloved here talking to the daughters of Jerusalem? Well, there's a beautiful thing about the word Jerusalem, is you might know it means the city of peace, but what it really means is to cast peace. Now you think about it from a fishing standpoint, that these daughters of Jerusalem are really, they're us. I mean, they're the church, and what church doesn't love a good testimony.

And that's what's going on here. All right, and is that she is feeling the results of her sin, yet she realizes the king has taken her from this place of mourning from her sin, to the place of comfort from being poor in spirit to the kingdom of heaven. I mean, it's really just clear that this is so cool to me that in telling the love story, you got to get some testimony in here and you're going to find in these next two verses, you know that you are going to find that testimony. So as we look at 119 Psalm, I don't know how many times we talked about testimonies, but obviously it's a big part of what the Psalmist was going to and very much always connected to all that was being done in every single letter in the Hebrew alphabet as we studied eight verses. And again, with the eight chapters in the Song of Solomon being similar, and that we feel like this is telling the love story. So we would be in the Aleph section of the love story, right? And you might remember that when we were doing the Aleph section, the fifth verse similarly, I can't help but think about it, says, Oh, that my ways were directed to keep their thy statutes.

You see the poor in spirit idea here? And what is it referring to statutes? Oh, that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes. This idea of mourning clearly is connected to statutes.

All right. And it just is, especially, you know, since we're going to, in some ways, I feel like the first chapter has got to be connected to the Aleph and the second chapter. I don't know that for sure yet, but that's part of why we're going through this. The second chapter would then be connected to the Bet, the third chapter would then be connected to the Gimel, the Dalud, right? Then we'll move into the Hay and the Vav and the Zion and the last and the eighth chapter being the climax, of course, being the miracle verse would be the miracle chapter of the letter Het, which is our union with God. And so here we find interestingly in the fifth verse, I don't know that it's a coincidence that you see this idea of mourning that you would see in the eight verses of the letter Aleph. But anyway, as we study these, I can't help but think, oh my goodness, what a way to see the love story of Christ in the church and what a way to think of how that is, you know, so much connected and notice how they bring in the daughters of Jerusalem, right?

I think it's so spectacular that our love story is not that we're the only ones that these daughters of Jerusalem are also, you know, here with us and as we hear other people's testimonies, you know, we can't help but see that they too are, right, black yet comely, you know, black as the tents of Qatar as the curtains of Solomon. You know, think about how many people's testimonies you've heard that have been along that line. But of course, the one that you really can't help but wonder is what about you? What about your testimony? And if you haven't heard mine before, but here's the really Reader's Digest version of it is that I was in Scientology. And due to that teaching and being involved in that in my early 20s, I certainly felt like I was God, I didn't need God because I already had one that would be me. Which I think is so much the problem of sin is that as we talked about yesterday, that iniquity is I don't need God, I have faith in myself, I don't have faith, I don't need to have any God to help me with anything. And so you know, I was the picture of iniquity, and I needed to be leading on God. And so I had picked up a series by, well, God had given me this prayer through church with going to church with my wife, that was phenomenal. Plus, I had a wife that was praying for me and a mother that was praying for me.

So I don't want anybody to think this happened in a vacuum, because it didn't. And there were a lot of things that God was moving on all at the same time. But the actual moment of truth for me was as I was reading the book of Job, because I'd started to go through the whole Bible. And the more I read the Bible, the matter I got at God, if there was a God, I was like, this guy is just not fair. I mean, it was a picture of iniquity. It was like, why is he doing this? And you know, then when he, when he was parading, you know, Job in front of Satan, and then getting his kids killed and all, I was furious, God, I was absolutely beside myself.

Until you get to write to the end of Job. When God said, you know, okay, smart guy, Robbie, because I, you know, as I was reading it, I fully realized he was talking to me and not to Job, when he said, of course, he was talking to Job, but the book was talking to me when he said, okay, if you're so smart, you know, I've got a few questions for you, since all my questions so far had been for God. And that question was, you know, Robbie, if you've, if you're a God, you know, why don't you make it snow?

Why don't you, you know, stick your hook in a behemoth? You know, all those things really rattled my cage. And I realized, oh my goodness, I'm not God. And then I realized, man, this God has got a really high standard that I don't need. And I was in a bad, bad way. And I was dark with no sense of ever being comely.

I can assure you, I knew that I was in terrible shape. Well, you know, when I got to the New Testament, I found the answers right to not being dead. In order to how to move closer to God was I needed the blood of Jesus in order to get into his presence and get back to where he had for me all along so that I too would have this song of songs. I heard yesterday in a lecture by a Hebrew rabbi that every human being on this planet has a song and that it is God's desire to get the complete harmony that, you know, that everyone would get right with him so that no, but no piece of the song would be missing. And, and so all of us have a note or a part to play in this song. And so I hope today, as you reflect back on how you were dark and, but yet God made you beautiful, how you were poor, like the poor Bedouin Arabs, which by the way, were Ishmael's kids out in the, in the, in the desert where rain was just making their tents black. And then he sits us there in the kingdom. I mean, he takes us from poor to phenomenally the kingdom of heaven.

How did that happen for you? And wow, what a place to rejoice. And I am certain that that is a statue.