Song of Songs 3:3 - Darkness Came First

This is the Truth Network. Hidden treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. How fun! We get to dig into the gimel verse of the gimel chapter or the third verse of the third chapter in the Song of Solomon today to start the week.

How fun! So I'll read it in English. The watchmen that go about the city found me. To whom I said, saw ye him whom my soul loveth? And so as we talked about last time, she had gone about the city and I probably should have mentioned that she tried the Broadway, which clearly many of us have tried that way to find Jesus.

It's not there. And then she tried the regular streets as well and she still didn't find him. And so now she is found, which is interesting to me. She doesn't say I found the watchman, but the watchman found her as she was going about the city. And again, then she asks him, not unlike Mary would there at the tomb that morning, she found the two watchmen. They were angels, right? And she asked him, you know, where is he? You know, they've taken away my beloved.

And I'm sure that there's been places like that in your life. And so as I look at some really cool things, one of the cool things about this verse is what the Jews specifically Rashi teaches on this verse and you have to think through that they see this whole Song of Solomon as an allegory of the journey of Israel in their relationship with God. And so they believe that this here, these two, the watchmen that found the beloved in this particular case are in fact Moses and Aaron because they're zadik, they're righteous ones that go about the city and they're the ones who in this case clearly were with the people looking for God, but they make reference to the 38 years after they didn't go with the spies. You may have noted that the story of the Exodus, it goes on, there's a whole lot of miracles, a whole lot of God involved as they, you know, escape from Egypt, as they go and get the law on Mount Sinai and then there's the whole golden calf incident and God shows up and there's the rebellion, all sorts of things happen, but once the spies come back and they choose not to go, after that point for 38 years it's like the story just kind of stops and you don't hear much, especially you don't see the amount of God that you see until near the end when again Moses and Aaron are dying, okay? And so what Rashi teaches about this verse is this is Israel looking for God, going to Moses and going to Aaron, looking for God during those 38 years that they are wandering in the desert and I just think that's absolutely spectacular and so there's a bit of how the allegory may play out, of course you've got to think about what does this look like in our lives, you know, what does this look like in our relationship with God and I think both Spurgeon and Bunyan have some stuff for us there that I would just love to share with you, I just love, love, love to think about this and really about the first three verses all fit into this category that Spurgeon talks about that there was evening and then there was morning, in other words it was dark before it was dawn, alright? And you know she started out in night and here she's still going about in the dark and certainly if you think about our own lives, you know, they start out in the dark and I think it's spectacular in Genesis when you really look into those two words evening and morning there's much, much, much to learn which probably should be a sermon all or at least a podcast all on its own, maybe I'll do that at some point in time but the whole idea of there was evening in other words you got dark and you're looking forward to the morning and here's the situation we find our bride in this particular day and then John Bunyan said something that actually Spurgeon loved to quote and I love to quote it, it's just spectacular I just came across it recently, it just got in my soul and you can't make it go away so I hope you love this as much as I do but John Bunyan said, that which is last lasts. I mean how awesome is that, right? If Jesus, you know, he ended up at the right hand of God and that lasts and as we obviously get to come to Christ it's going to last when we get to heaven it's going to last, which is last, lasts and clearly we don't want to be in that last place where we're separated from God and so I hope as you're listening to this you have that relationship with Jesus and you just think about here she is, she's in the dark and she's been found by these watchmen and so watchmen are people that are obviously protecting the city or they're going about trying to make sure that people are well and healthy and all that stuff in the city but they're also, you know, as we go through our lives I bet you've been found by watchmen and so as I thought about this when I was in my early relationship with God, right, when I was still very much in the dark, not that I'm in the light anymore but I've come a little bit further in the chapters I guess than the gimel verse here because the watchmen did find me. When I first moved to Winston-Salem I was a little bit confused because I really felt like I was making good way with God in the city of Raleigh and all of a sudden I got fired and all of a sudden out of nowhere because of somebody else's sin, essentially what happened was that I was the general manager of the most profitable store in all of the Crown organization in the Honda Volvo store in Chapel Hill and unfortunately the owner of all of Crown, his name was Royce Reynolds, his son-in-law had an affair on his daughter and his son-in-law owned the Honda store there in Greensboro and Royce couldn't stand to have him around every day all that close to him so he made him a deal and sold him the store that I was the general manager of but because there was so much equity in that store it's a long story but the end of the story is because of that son-in-law having the affair I lost my job which put me in a very early point in my faith like oh my God what is this all about and so I came to Winston-Salem and then the watchman found me I was in a kind of dark place, I really was in so many different ways and so there was a man by the name of Jack Mayberry who goes to Calvary or he did go to Calvary, he's passed away but he was a very dear saint and for whatever reason he came to buy a car there when I was first at Bob Neill Chrysler Plymouth GB Eagle and he took a liking to me and he could see I love the Lord and so he invited me to something called Christian Businessmen's Committee which at that point in time so Jack Mayberry happened to be one of those watchmen who found me but when he took me to Christian Businessmen Committee there was a man there by the name of Ted Burton and Ted Burton had not been in the Lord all that long himself about six years but he became very quickly in his older age he was an older man just an unbelievable saint I was once in a meeting where there was probably about 300 guys between Greensboro and Winston-Salem and they said how many men in this room were mentored by Ted Burton and almost three quarters of the room I'm talking about 175 and when Ted Burton mentored you it wasn't like in a big group he took you one on one and he took you through a book that Christian Businessmen Committee had called First Steps and he walked you through how to be a disciple essentially how to study the Bible how to memorize Scripture and he would meet with me once a week he'd go have breakfast with me or he'd have lunch he'd come over to the dealership whatever Ted did he met with me and he taught me so much about being a disciple he was he was a watchman right and of course you know I don't know what that looked like in your life um where a watchman found you okay because that's what it says and you're gonna find that won't be shortly after here that she finds Jesus but at this point in time she's still looking and she doesn't mention it but I'm wondering if there was somebody in your life that you just want to acknowledge and say man Jack Mayberry and Ted Burton wow those were the watchmen that found me when I first came to Winston-Salem and oh my goodness what a difference it made because for those who know me well know that I work for Truth Broadcasting and what you may not know is shortly thereafter I met Stu Aperson and I invited him to Christian Businessmen Committee of course he'd been well discipled in his family long before he met me but he just blossomed in Christian Businessmen Committee and when I moved to Mocksville we made Stu the president of the Christian Businessmen Committee here in Winston-Salem of course that relationship that we had there would build the foundation of what later would become my broadcasting career clearly is like God used all those people all those men in my life in so many miraculous ways when I think about when I came to Winston-Salem you know that was that so I pray as you think about wow it may be dark wherever you are right now but morning is coming right there was evening and then there was morning and what what is last will last thank you so much for listening I can't tell you what it means to me that you take this journey with me every day.