Song of Solomon 4:2 A Verse To Sink Your Teeth In

This is the Truth Network. Hidden treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. We definitely have a verse we can sink our teeth into today in the second verse of the fourth chapter of the Song of Songs.

And I'm sure you'll get that pun in a second as it reads in English, Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, and which came up from the washing whereof, every one bearing twins, and none is barren among them. So again, here we have Christ describing his beloved and the beauty of the church in so many different ways. And this is just a really cool verse. And again, getting back to what Matthew Henry said about the seven different attributes of the beloved here is that those seven line up with the seven spirits of God, as we would reflect Christ, that makes perfect sense, as that was his anointing. And of course, if we talked about last time, obviously her eyes being wisdom and her hair being understanding, then today the teeth would fit into the idea of counsel.

And this certainly lines up well, in my opinion, with this very beautifully. As you think about it, that the teeth, as Matthew Henry would point out, are what obviously we have to chew on the Word of God. And we get to chew on the Word of God.

I shouldn't say we have to, but what a delight we get to do that. And so as the priests would eat the sacrifices, if you think about that, and Rashi points this out, as did Matthew Henry, that the priests would eat these sacrifices, obviously, with their teeth, and thus they would be creating that nourishment in order to feed the flock, as do the priests of many churches today in so many different beautiful ways. And then we get another beautiful picture of how these teeth are described. And I also think it's worth noting the wonder of how the Scripture all fits together, because you might remember back in Genesis, when Jacob was certainly giving his sons all the anointings, when he anointed Judah with all those pictures of the scepter and the king, one of the things he said was his eyes would be red like wine and his teeth white with milk. And you can't help but see how the milk of the Word fits into this. And since Jesus is the Word, when you think about it, you literally are eating the sacrifice as we take communion. With the wine, you get the picture of how this all comes together and what beautiful counsel it is, as these teeth would be like a flock of sheep.

Obviously, there's a whole bunch of them, and they're coming up from the washing. And the idea of counsel has to do with doing things right, and this idea of washing is all about the same thing, to be clean. And both Rashi and Matthew Henry point out that it's a very important part of the priesthood that these people be righteous, that these people be righteous, and they stay clean. And this is part of what we do as we chew on the Word. It makes us clean.

I mean, it makes our teeth white, so to speak. Isn't that beautiful? And then it says, Each one bears twins, and none is barren among them. And the really, really neat word of twins is actually formed with the exact same letter as the word truth, which is amet in Hebrew. And so those words, rearranged a little bit, make the word twins. And it really means to be linked together in so many different ways with the truth, okay?

Because that's where those letters fit together. And almost a picture of, like in the end, Jesus will look just like the Father. The Father will look just like Jesus, because it's a tav, and then an aleph, and then a mem.

And you might know that the aleph usually means the Father, and the mem usually means the Son. And so when you put those together, you go, well, in the end, the Father is going to look just like the Son, the Son's going to look like the Father. And that's kind of how that works when you chew on the Word. And you see how all that comes together just beautifully from my point of view.

It's absolutely gorgeous. But one of the things I, you know, I just wonder in your life practically how does that work? Like when you sit underneath tremendous, you know, God's anointed a preacher to really chew on a passage and give you an understanding that means so much to your life.

Well, you know, my daughter goes to a wonderful church, Redeemer, in Birmingham, Alabama. And the pastor there the last time, or maybe a couple times ago when we were there, gave a sermon on the Romans 8 verses that have to do, you know, with the Holy Spirit, you know, praying for us with, you know, that we would be made into the likeness of his Son. And, and then interestingly, you know, as Romans 8 28 comes right after that, you know, all things work together for those who, you know, are called according to his purpose, etc. And then, right, to be made into the likeness of his Son for those he predestined, right, would be made into the likeness of Christ. And so when you think about this, this, this pastor had digested this in such a way that I'd never seen the combination of those verses having to do with the Holy Spirit constantly groaning in my life, that I'd be made into the likeness of Christ.

And so, you know, I see that constantly when you see things that look absolutely horrible. And then it works together for good in some way. And, you know, we had a horrible tragedy in our special needs class this week. One of the young men there we've known for years and years is named Ryan, and he had a brother that was just a year or two younger than him. And unfortunately, they, he was single, lived behind the house there where Ryan lived. And his mom and dad, you know, kind of took care of him as well. And he had gotten COVID, got really, really sick. And then we thought was on the mend. Unfortunately, this week, his mom found him dead in his room.

It was just horrible. And then to make that even more complicated, Ryan being severely autistic, and very, very much connected to his brother, his brother, whose name was JJ, everything in the world was, I mean, Ryan loved JJ and constantly talked about JJ. Can you imagine the task of having to tell Ryan that his brother was dead? And, and from what I describe it in what they described to us yesterday in church, about those conversations that, you know, immediately, like all of us, he just denied it.

No, no, no, no, you know, he can't be. And then he said, then his mother said that he came a little while later and just laid his hand on her lady's head on her shoulder and just wept. And that, you know, that's just like, how could this happen to such a, you know, this family has been through so much. Yet, there was their testimony that they told about because Ryan loves loves like a lot of autistic people, they have things that they're focused that they hear. And that that just catches their attention much more than other people. And one of the things that Ryan loves, he loves fans, but another thing he loves is loudspeakers, wherever they are, if they're speakers somewhere that's playing some kind of music or saying something, he's very much an attention to it. And if those speakers don't work, it really, really bothers Ryan, as you know, the speakers in our classroom, which used to be, you know, piped into, to give announcements to the classrooms and all that have long not worked. And so, you know, he loves it when I put my phone up on those speakers.

And he can hear things it's just, you know, he'll just stand there and I'll jump up and down and, and just because he loves for those speakers to work. Well, he asked his dad, after his brother died, if they could go to Lowe's. And if he could hear his brother's name called from that loudspeaker, right?

I mean, is that not a beautiful request, because that would mean so much to Ryan and his world. That's how I understand that. And so his dad took him to Lowe's and of course, talked to the people there at Lowe's and it didn't take long. And they totally understood. And they called out actually Ryan's name first in a few minutes later, you know, as they're walking through the store, all of a sudden they heard, he called him JJ, but his name was Jason. And all of a sudden he heard him saying, Jason Mattel, Jason, you know, just, and of course I could see I wasn't there, but I know Ryan, I know the elation that when he heard that over that loudspeaker, what that would be like, well, you know, Ryan has another caregiver by the name of Daryl.

And so he was with Daryl the next day. And he asked Daryl if they could go back to Lowe's hoping that they could hear the same thing. But of course, when they get into Lowe's, well, I shouldn't say of course, but what happened was, you know, Daryl said, no, I'm not going to go do that, Ryan, because you know that we don't want to continue to bother the store with things like that. So Daryl told Ryan that he wouldn't go talk to the store manager to do that again.

And he did not tell him that. Well, as they're walking around the store about 15 minutes later, I guess somebody within the store, whatever, you know, God had it in mind that Ryan was going to hear this. And so as Ryan was walking through the store without Daryl asking that this happened, all of a sudden, he hears Ryan Mattel, Ryan Mattel, you know, and of course, I could just see Ryan's face just delighted. And of course, a few minutes later, he heard Jason Mattel, Jason Mattel, you know, oh my goodness. And what Ryan himself connected with this and what he explained to his father, that it was God that had that happen and it was reassurance to Ryan that his brother was in heaven. Now, I mean, it's an unbelievable thing, but you can see how God used this to fashion Ryan in so many different ways into the image of Christ. And if you could see Ryan's elation and his worship as he sees God in the way as that Ryan sees God, you know, it's just an absolutely amazing thing and so glad I get to tell you about it this morning because, you know, as we have chewed on the Word of God and we begin to understand all things work together for good in so many different ways, because the Holy Spirit is praying for us, interceding for us, and clearly we're interceding for Ryan through this situation. And so as always, I am just blown away by the counsel that's in this counsel verse of our teeth. That's good counsel.

If they would be made white with the milk of the Word, wouldn't that be beautiful? Thanks for listening. you