Song of Solomon 4:3 - Red Lips and Cheeks

This is the Truth Network. Hidden treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Oh, how the church's beauty reflects Jesus in so many different ways and just reflects a woman's beauty in so many different ways. And boy, am I seeing now all these dots will connect for us today in verse three of the Dalit section or the fourth chapter of the Song of Songs.

And so just wow, wow, wow is all I have to say. I'll just read it in English and we'll dive in because there's a lot of dots I think you'll connect when we read this verse. So we've been talking as we talked about the different seven attributes of the bride, of the beauty of the bride and how they reflect Christ's sevenfold anointing from Isaiah chapter 11.

And so we'll read this in English. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet and thy speech is comely. Thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks.

So here we have two things. I think anybody who would look at a beautiful woman, they see ruby red lips or however that looks, red lips and blushed cheeks. And so it's interesting that both colors have to do with red.

I think that's fascinating. And so if we connect these with the seven, since we did the wisdom and understanding council today, the lips would be might and then the temples or in this case it's actually cheeks would probably be a better description of what's described here. The cheeks are the pomegranates, are knowledge which is just beautifully lines up with that in so many different mysterious ways. So the scarlet thread is throughout the scriptures as you may know and the first time we see it I believe is in Genesis when the scarlet thread is wrapped around the heel of Perez's brother Zara. And then we see it throughout of course the Levitical law as a way to cleanse leprosy. And then we see it again as Rahab would drop a scarlet cord down her out of her window in order to keep the promise. And so Rashi makes that connection which I think is beautiful that the red scarlet cord is often connected to the promise. In other words, the promise that Zara would be the firstborn because that's why they put it on his ankle and the promise that Rahab would be taken care of because she'd protected the spies. And the promise of being cured from leprosy is from the Levitical law. And so this idea of the promise is connected to that scarlet and again these scarlet lips in a sense this is the idea of might or power.

When you think of the power of your words it's absolutely spectacular and so we can see that connection. And then the idea of the scarlet is huge and it connects so many different dots because there is a worm that is called the scarlet worm which is in so many ways an image of Christmas because of that scarlet promise. And the way that the scarlet worm works, I've talked about this in my radio show several times, is that there's a female scarlet worm that they use to get this dye that they would dye the threads in order to get this beautiful color that was used in much of the much of the tapestry in the veil and all in the temple.

Which again is more of the promise that that veil would be torn in two. But the way that the scarlet happens with the case of the worm is this particular bug, the female of the species will cling to an oak tree, wood. As we've talked about so many times how wood is a picture of righteousness and scarlet is an idea of righteousness as well. And so they hold to this wood and then they dye and as they dye they lay their eggs and those eggs then begin to feed on the body of their mother and when they do it releases this scarlet dye that both marks the tree as scarlet and also marks their young. That they now have the same scarlet and of course they use that color in order to make the thread red. And so as we clearly eat Christ through communion and we're receiving the promise you know to be part of him through you know taking communion and all of that is pictured by this scarlet thread that weaves its way all the way through scriptures in so many different ways.

And so I hope you can see the might of that, the might of that scarlet thread and the might of these words that would speak a word of hope to people. Okay and so you can see that and of course there's a lot of ways you can go with that but we'll move on to the pomegranates. And I don't know if you've ever heard this but a lot of folks believe that the fruit that that Adam and Eve ate was pomegranate. You know again the idea of being a red fruit and the reason they think that is that the pomegranate has long been associated with knowledge. The Jews have taught that there are 613 seeds in a pomegranate which has a lot to do with you know the whole idea of being fruitful of course obviously.

But also the idea of there are 613 mitzvah according to their traditions. Again this is something to just know I don't know that it's anything that is absolute truth but we do know is obviously there's a lot of seeds in a pomegranate and the idea of all that is there's much to know. And so you know the idea of these cheeks being blushed is from Matthew Henry pointed this out beautifully that is our own knowledge of our sin behind these locks. In other words it's not obvious to anybody but Jesus that behind our locks we blush over our sin and that to Jesus is beautiful. In other words as we consider those things that we have missed the mark on it's embarrassing and of course you know Jesus knows how we actually feel and our hearts respond to that and his you know he can see that you know he can see that behind our locks and it's absolutely beautiful. And so as we look at this verse you know there's just a whole whole lot to think about you know how can we actually look to apply this or what does this look like with these scarlet lips and these blushing cheeks from Jesus's point of view. And I think perhaps you know we have opportunities all the time like I got a call late Saturday night from a dear friend who was struggling and gone through just some difficult letdowns and and what she told me was she actually felt like a loser as a result of some of the things that had happened and and I know this person is anything but a loser. And so you know it was it was wonderful to share with her as I as we thought about the promises right and to help I guess you know her to see you know how much God is doing with her life and how much you know she's an encouragement to so many other people and even though all I was doing just was reflecting what God had given me I know in that situation to her you know my lips were scarlet as to absolutely were that they were revealing this promise that we know that you know what we've done for Christ will last you know. I mean that's just that's that's a big big part of it but we also talked at length you know about this idea that we we shared in the third chapter about you know behold or you daughters of Zion go forth and see the crown of thorns that we crowned Jesus with ourselves that we're responsible for you know him having to shed this crimson and but yet it was it somehow in his his delight and I think of the times that I let him down or the times that I didn't have those scarlet lips for somebody that needed them and it makes me blush and I'm sure that it makes you blush as well that you know we want to be there for people that need the encouragement but it's a beautiful thing to see that here we are as the bride of um as the bride of Christ and he sees these scarlet lips and these blushed cheeks um just spectacular stuff to think about today and and and reflect uh what an opportunity it is to share this with you all I really really really appreciate it.