Song of Solomon 4:11 - Smelling Light

This is the Truth Network. Hidden treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Well, we get to go on another high mountain adventure today as we revisit verse 11 in the fourth chapter, which is the Huth verse. As I mentioned the last episode that that has to do with a strong desire and a crown of sorts, and you can see where this is definitely a crown, we get to talk about today. So yesterday we said, and we said in English, this verse reads, thy lips, O spouse, drop as the honeycomb. Honey and milk are under thy tongue.

That's what we covered last time. Today we get to do, and the smell of thy garments is like the smell of Lebanon. And, oh my goodness.

So we get to go back to Lebanon in so many different ways. But just to begin with, that word smell is significantly large to understanding this imagery that we have in this unbelievable poem. That the word smell in Hebrew begins with a resh, and then it has a yud, and then a het.

And the idea behind that, again, if we go through those letters one at a time, we say a resh means the beginning of something. And isn't that so true of a smell? Before you eat something, the first thing you do is you smell it. Or when you walk into a room or when you're in somebody's presence, their smell kind of gives you an idea of the start of what the experience may be. And their name often is counted as having a smell to it, because it leaves a fragrance on odor or that kind of thing. And so it's neat, and I think it really is, that that resh, the start, like the head of a river, that's the beginning of the word smell.

And of course, the yud is this idea of the God's spark. And it also has to do with little droplets of rain. But in this case, when you have a resh and, in fact, the root word of smell is to water, because you've got little droplets of rain. Well, they're little droplets of what you're smelling.

And so it's kind of neat that that's designed that way. So there's this little droplet, a little bitty bit of something that you're smelling, and then the het, which is to be united. And when you think about if you're fixing to eat something, you're fixing to be united with it. Or again, as you enter into a relationship, certainly in this situation, where we are being united with Christ or united in marriage, the smell of that is a significant issue.

And you might note that this word is commonly, commonly, commonly used in the books of Numbers and Leviticus. That's where you'll find it the most is that these were the sweet smell of the offering. The first place you find this was the smell of the offering that Noah made after his sacrifice when he got on dry land. And that was a sweet savor to the Lord.

And again, this idea of the beginning of peace, which we're going to talk a lot about that as we get into the whole idea here. So the idea of smell right here is gigantic from my perspective in life as it is in love and in marriage. And then it says as your garments, okay, that the smell is the smell of your garments. And this is raiment. It's kind of the outer covering, so to speak. And this word, the root of it is really cool.

And I hope you can follow me with this. It's shalom. It's Salem. It's a shin and a lamed and a mem. The word raiment is a shin and a lamed and a mem. And that says Salem. It says shalom in so many different ways.

And then it ends in a hey, which means it's shalom expressed. Well, of course it is because our problem all along since Eden was we lost our cover. You know, what did God have to do? He had to cover us with skins. And what cover it is that we need is peace.

We need Jesus. And that cover to its own extent is light. And the marriage itself is spectacular. If you study Jewish marriage, it has to do with, again, the bride is going to surround the groom seven times. And that's going to be the idea of light, again, being spread. And the hoopah itself, the word to get married under is an idea of being surrounded by light. So this idea of this garment here that's going to smell like Lebanon in a minute has everything to do with white and light, okay? Because if we put on Christ, we're putting on white. We're putting on light, right? As you put on Christ, you put on light. And so your garments are to be peace, shalom. Isn't that neat?

The connection between shalom and Lebanon in a minute that you're going to see here. But this idea of being comfortable in your own skin. Maybe you've heard that. And maybe you know people that you see they're just comfortable in their own skin.

Why? Because they've put on Christ. And they don't have to put on any kind of false mask that they're just living out of their true identity, which is peace.

If I can just be myself, whatever that is, you know, then I can, you know, I can be at total peace when I'm at myself. And I love that that idea of cover, like when we put on Jesus's blood, ultimately that's our cover. And in that, we have peace with God. And we have His light because we're married to Him.

You see, it's a spectacular picture. We're under the hoopah. We are going to surround Jesus with our light. And this is what is like an intimate, intimate kiss with Jesus is the smell of our, as He's involved in this kiss that has the honey and the milk under our tongues, the building blocks of our thoughts. He is smelling our peace. He's smelling the fact that we're comfortable finally in just being us.

Isn't that awesome? I think it's just a spectacular. And then of course, what's the smell like of these garments, of these peace garments? Well, it smells like Lebanon. And I don't know if we, you know, we just came from a honeymoon in Lebanon and you might remember Mount Amanah and Mount, you know, Cheniere and the mountain of the leopards and of course, Mount Herman, all those places, right, are this idea of, again, that Lebanon is a lamed and a bet and a nun, then another avav. In other words, there's an extension of that nun.

And again, the root of that is heart. But then when you add the nun on heart, you have white. And that's why Lebanon is called, because when you look at the mountain ridges from Israel, you see this white. And what's on top of, of course, Amanah and Herman and all those, if you look at pictures of them, you're going to see they're white with snow.

Of course they are. But the thing of that is, is they reflect light tremendously. Like if you go up there, it's bright. You've been in the snow and you notice how white it is. Well, that's light.

You're being surrounded by light. And so when Jesus has told us, you know, that he'd come with us to Lebanon, to Lebanon, to Mount, and part of the overall view of that is we're just absolutely surrounded by light. And so as a result of that, like when Moses came down from the mountain, right, what was he? He was all lit up, especially his face, because he had been on this honeymoon, right?

He knew exactly. And so the idea of this lamed that's at the beginning of the word Lebanon has to do with learning, right? And then it's a bet, which means sort of your house and your identity, a learning house. And that's so connected to, you know, my best time of the day is always in the morning after I've observed something wondrous, he's taken me to the mountaintop and I have seen something that just goes, oh man, that is so awesome. Like today, I'm just telling you, you know, today I'm sitting here just in awe of how this all comes together. And we have on this raiment of this white, white light as a result of our being on the honeymoon with Jesus.

I mean, it just is what's going to be. And he can smell it. As he smells it, it's the first smell of peace. It's the first smell of light.

It's interesting. How do you smell white? And again, we mentioned this in several episodes, but Lebanon and frankincense in Hebrew, almost the same word. And so this idea of the white frankincense. And so, you know, I did this morning because frankincense smells just like Lebanon. And by the way, you know, since it's the sap of a pine type tree, when you burn incense, I mean, when you burn frankincense, guess what it smells like?

It smells like Lebanon. And I have some frankincense I bought for my Sunday school class one time, so they could all, you know, have it. And so this morning I got out my incense and my frankincense, and oh man, I could go right to Lebanon, right? You could go right, if you get some frankincense, which again, that idea of the lamed and the bat and the nun, because here you have this teaching, this learning, like a disciple loves to learn, and it's the house of learning that makes light, right? And the idea of faith, that end sound, that nun, and then you get an extension. Well, you remember that the first verse in the nun section was thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

So of course, Lebanon ends with a nun and a vav, meaning the extension, it just keeps on going. Light, light, light. I mean, oh my goodness, what a beautiful thing. So as I started to just think about, man, the people that I know, you know, God has just blessed me to know some amazing saints. And one of those, he's actually the pastor of Peace Church. If you ever meet James Banks, you know, here's the guy, he, you feel like you're at peace, just he is completely comfortable in his skin. He is wearing that garment he has put on Christ to be, when he walks into the room, you feel it, right? You smell it, you smell the peace, you smell the white, you get the light, you get that. Sam Main is the head of Ashland Journey, Good Heart Ministries. You know, when Sam walks into a room, you can smell the peace.

I mean, it's just, it is coming, right? And you can sense that they just bring that. And I could go on with a list of people, but I would like you to just think about the people in your life who are completely comfortable in their own skin. They don't have to put on some kind of air that they're religious or holy or whatever, that they just simply have Christ on there. They're completely comfortable in their own skin. And yet they just radiate light, right?

And how did they get that? I can tell you every single one of those spends an amazing amount of time in God's word and in prayer. And a dear friend of mine who also brings peace when he comes is Jim Graham. And he mentioned this last night and I love it. And I'm going to quote it so that we can all like bees, gather our pollen to put under our honey of our tongues. He said, somebody asked him, you know, is prayer more important or scripture? And he said, the person answered with a great wisdom, which I would agree. It's like asking, is it better to breathe in or breathe out? Isn't that cool? You know, I'll leave you there with that thought like, man, those people who are in prayer or in scripture, those are the people that have garments that smell like Lebanon. Thank you for listening.