Song of Solomon 3:2- Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places

This is the Truth Network. being the idea of prospering. And before I read this verse, I want to remind you that the second verse in the Gimel section of the 119 Psalm says, Open my eyes to behold wondrous things out of thy law, which that again has to do with that idea of prospering. And I think that you'll see that the bride is going to be seeking this morning. So she says now, verse two, I will rise now and go about the city and the streets and in the broadways. I will seek him whom my soul loveth.

I sought him, but I found him not. And so once again, we're still in the anticipation mode, right? So yeah, last week, excuse me, last episode, we were talking about she was on her bed, but now she gets up. And it's kind of interesting that, you know, all through the end of the last chapter, you know, the Jesus, you know, bridegroom character was acting her to arise. He asked her very specifically twice to arise and implicated it as well the third time.

So it's interesting that now she decides it's time to get up. And of course, not unlike in the fifth chapter, which we're going to spend a lot of time in, and in the sixth chapter, we're going to find this same story kind of unfold again. And it's interesting that, again, we're talking about before we can find, we have to seek and that idea of asking God to open our eyes to behold wondrous things out of his law.

In other words, here we are looking for this. And what's spectacular to me, as I really thought about the idea of the gimel, you may know that the gimel is the first letter in the word garden. In fact, all that garden is in Hebrew is two letters, a gimel, which means to prosper, as we talked about, and a nun, which is that idea of thy word as a light unto my path.

So, you know, a nun has to do with our nafesh, our souls. And when you think about your prospering soul, you know, there you go, you're right there in the garden. Now, and the thing about the garden that she is after right here, when you think about it is, she is looking for him.

And what you'll find if you read ahead in chapter five and six, is that she knows exactly where he is all the time. She even mentioned it in the last part of the first chapter, excuse me, the second chapter when she said, she said, my beloved, he feeds among the lilies, right? And so he's in the garden. He's looking for those flowers.

And again, he feeds among those that are essentially part of that. Now, as you think about the word Eden, okay, because, you know, essentially that's what we're always looking for. We're always looking for Eden.

And there's some interesting correlations between Eden that I was studying this morning, because I was in the garden thinking about being in the garden. Well, Eden is an iron and a dalit and a nun. And I know I'm talking a lot of Hebrew here, but I think it's helpful to think back to the 119 Psalm, which we studied and think about, okay, so that iron has to do when you think about it with the word testimony, you know, right?

Remember, we're going to keep his testimonies. And so testimonies are an eye witness, and that's the idea of that iron to something that God did. Well, very interestingly that the word Eden is an iron and a dalit and an iron and a dalit in the hay is the word testimonies, okay? And so have you ever thought about that when you were in a dinner with a bunch of people and they're talking about God and you have all these different God's sightings, or maybe you're with your brand of brothers sometimes and you're meeting with them and they're sharing God and that's Eden.

That's why you feel the way that you do is because it's the whole idea. And that's why, you know, remember, we talked about testimonies in the 119 Psalm, our souls love them. The reason that it loves them, it's just like being in the garden. And what's the advantage of being in the garden that Adam had that we don't have? Jesus was there.

He walked with him in the cool of the day. You know, I know that we can walk with him spiritually, but the idea that Adam had actually in the garden, the place of true prospering, the thing that's in the garden that makes it absolutely spectacular is God, right? And as we think about what it is that she is anticipating, she wants to be in the garden. She wants to be back there in communion with Jesus, right? Where we can be fruitful and we can do what it is we were originally designed to do. And so I don't know about you, but I was thinking about that in my own world. How do I experience the garden?

And it gets back to what we said at the very beginning of this episode, right? Open my eyes to behold wondrous things out of thy law. Like that's one place I know I can find him. He's in the garden of his word, okay? If you want to prosper, spend time in his word. You want to find Jesus, go looking in his word. And I know I'm singing to the choir because you all are here because you wanted to experience God this morning. You wanted to spend some time in Eden.

Well, I think about it. Whenever I get desperate to find God, I go to his word, whether that's the word I've hidden in my heart or the word that I have in my Bible. However, I look about doing that, when I'm really finding myself in a tough place, where do I go?

Where do I go? He's always there. He gathers among the lilies, right? Open my eyes to behold wondrous things out of thy law. We're in search of these statutes, again, where we can be close to our beloved, where we can be close to the person we're united with. And how do we get closer to him? To me, often when I'm in prayer in the morning and I can't seem to find my way, I'll go to his word and I can find him. And so I hope that as you're thinking about being in the garden today and looking around and trying to find him as you go through your day, don't forget, just his word is always right there and it's easy, a whole lot easier to find him in his word sometimes when there's a lot of people screaming at you or whatever your situation may be. I thank you for listening. I pray that you do sense him here in my testimony because I've met with him this morning and I hope you get a sense of that and that we can spend a little time in Eden together as we delight in what we've seen of God. Thanks for listening.