Song of Solomon 4:14 Faith's Sugar and Spice & Everything Nice

So today we get to look at the nun verse of the 4th chapter, or the 14th verse of the 4th chapter of the Song of Solomon, and I'll go ahead and read that in English as it's full of surprises, that's for sure. So, last episode we had talked about that the plants, or the 13th verse, thy plants are an orchard of pomegranates and pleasant fruits, campfire, and spikenard. Well, as I talked about, that spikenard was a plural word, and now it appears that he's going to give us what all is involved in those plural spikenards, in my opinion. Anyway, it says, spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees, of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices. So in that list, in my opinion, of the spikenards, and the reason I say that is that the term spikenard was kind of used in plural at the end of the last verse, and then this one begins the word spikenard, and as we talked about that, you know, that was what Mary used to anoint Jesus's feet with, that she poured out that, you know, that was certainly one of the anointings of Christ, but then also it was used another time in the anointing of Jesus, and so when you look at that word in Hebrew, it is, it starts with the letter nun, and the letter nun is what this verse is about, and it has to do with faith, and since it's nard, if you can hear, you can hear the sounds of it. It's an n for nard, you know, the beginning of the word, and then a rish, and then a dalit, and so it's like the headwaters of love, or faith's love, is kind of what it is, and so when we think about the church and how it anoints Christ, then here we get an, from what I'm saying, is a list, an itemized list, of what all is involved in that, and so the first one that's mentioned after spikenard, as we talked about spikenard last time, is this saffron, saffron, which saffron in Hebrew is a hoof, and then a rish, and then another hoof, and a mem, so the idea of that is this tremendous thirst and desire, okay, I'm just talking about the Hebrew word to give you an idea that, wow, so you got the headwaters of, you know, our faith's love, and then here comes this tremendous thirst, because it's a, that hoof is this idea of desire, and then the rish is the head again, and so when they replace, when they repeat the hoof, you know, you have this really, you know, strong desire, and then the mem at the end being for Christ, right, mem being the messiah, and so you see that here comes this thirst after this fresh headwaters, and then calamus has the, one of the letters that we really are looking for in this, as we've been studying, what are the hukum, right, the, the head kuf, and so the word calamus begins with a kuf, and then it has a nun, so here we have this idea when we think of the kuf of being as close as possible to, you know, the Lord, and so when it's kuf nun expressed, then that's as close to our faith as we can possibly be in that idea of calamus, and so you can see, and here we got this thirst, we have this desire to be close, you know, it fits very much into what, what's going to be the spices, or what gives off a wonderful smell of the church of the church of Christ. So then after the saffron and the calamus, we have cinnamon, and what a neat word that is in Hebrew, and it's very similar again to calamus in that it has, it starts with a kuf and a nun, but then it has a mem like, like the end of saffron, but then it puts in another vav and another nun, so there's two nuns in cinnamon, in fact you can hear it in the actual English word, cinnamon, right?

You can hear the two n's and the m, and that's actually in Hebrew, it's kind of like that, only with the, with the beginning of it starting with that letter huf, which again is this idea of this proximity to our faith, to Christ, and the faith, and it's, it's repeated twice there to just, you know, give you this idea of how much this is the nun verse, and so when you look at the letter nun in the 119 Psalm, you can help but note that thy word is a lamp unto our feet, right? And it's talking about Christ is being a lamp, and when you think about as our faith is increased, then all these things are shining a light, and, and that's what the church is doing as we get married to Christ under the hupa, it's all about the light, and, you know, an extension of delight. And then, interestingly, it takes that group of spices, and the next group of spices are trees. Well, the word tree, as we've talked about many times in the 119 Psalm, and in, in the Song of Solomon, the idea of tree is this yoked to righteousness, right? Because it's a, it's an ayin and a zaddy, so just as Jesus was, you know, yoked to a tree to become righteous, and just as all the, the different arcs were made of wood, and all the sacrifices were, you know, burnt, you know, using wood, and all that, so the wood is just very much connected to the idea of making things right. And so the next group of verses, I mean, the next group of spices have to do with making things right, things right, and here we see our old friends, frankincense and myrrh, which, when you think about it, those are both spices that come from trees. And that frankincense, as we've talked about so many times, has to do, just like Lebanon, it's got that, that lamed, and it has a bet, so you can hear that at lab sound, which means heart, and then a nun. Once again, you can see the nuns that are in this verse, and that idea of a white heart, right?

Because when you put lamed, bet, nun, that means white. And so, you know, this white heart expressed is what the word frankincense is in Hebrew, and it's fascinating to me that it's used so much there. It's a female, or a feminine, noun, and once again, you know, very much connected with Christ when you think about, you know, the gifts that were given by the magi, and it was also used in the prayers. And so, isn't it cool, I mean, when you think about it, that when Jesus describes the spices of what the church gives off, it's giving off this same idea of Lebanon, just like we talked about the garments would smell that way. And then the word myrrh, again, an old friend that we've talked about many times in this book, The Song of Solomon, and in so many different ways, and it is the root word of the word Mary, which has to do with, from my standpoint, the spikenard once again. We see this connection to Mary in the myrrh, and myrrh, again, being one of the chief spices that was used at the tabernacle, which is where we go with the word aloes, which is the third spice under the tree section, right? And so that word aloe in Hebrew is the root word of the word tabernacle, the place where we meet with the Father, right, as a result of having all this. So when you put all those together, especially with the idea of head spices, you know, the idea of spices that were used for so many different reasons in and about the tent of meeting, which even itself has to do with myrrh because it comes to Mount Moriah. And so it's interesting that we see all these things that Jesus is pointing out about his church, that these different spices, that when you attend a real, God-fearing, loving church, and they really are a community, you can't help but see these things and smell these things, which it just sounds delightful, right? Frankincense, myrrh, cinnamon, aloes, you know, you put all those together and you get the idea that this is going to smell wonderful. And so the idea that this is a cleansing and making things right of the tent of meeting or the place that the church comes together only makes sense, right? Because there you go with the aloes, it is the root word of the word tabernacle. I mean, it seems like it's just absolutely spectacular.

And then, as I was thinking about this, what does this look like practically, right? Well, it looks like love, right? Because this is what Mary did. She anointed Jesus with this spikenard, which again is an extension of all these spices, in my opinion, out of pure love.

And then love for one another. So when you're in a church that's filled with a love for one another, you can't help but smell this. And it is a place like when we attended church yesterday, which we did at the West Ashboro Baptist Church in Ashville, in Ashboro, West Ashboro Baptist Church in Ashboro, which I often get a chance to speak at. But yesterday, we just attended the service. And at the end of the service, they have a young lady there by the name of Julia, I hope you'll pray for.

She's struggling with cancer and she was in a wheelchair and very, you know, kind of run down and struggling, very thin. And so we anointed her with oil and prayed and laid hands on her at the end of this service. And I wish you could have been there because it was just, if something smelled like all this, right, that she was being anointed, you get the idea, of, you know, spikenard to so many different ways, she was being anointed and prayed over in love. And as we got in the car, my wife said, boy, you know, one thing is when you come here, you always feel like you've been to church because of the smell when they truly love one another, they're truly praying for each other, they're truly walking with each other. And that smell that comes from a community of that believers. And when I, you know, I feel like, man, I am so lucky that I feel that, I feel that smell, I feel that anointing, like when I'm around bodies of believers, both when I teach special needs, or when I go to either peace church or this church in Ashboro, or when I get to be with my band of brothers or whether I'm doing devotions at Somerset or my Christian Businessmen's Committee, all these different areas and communities that I get a chance to hang out with, like, oh my gosh, when they are at that point where they're truly loving on one another, if you don't smell cinnamon and saffron and calamus, you know, I don't know what to tell you. But what they're doing when they're doing that is literally, while the king is sitting in his table, our spikenard send forth its smell. You see that verse from the very first chapter? Jesus is making that come to life for you to say, he smells that, he smells that through his marriage, right? Because here we're on the honeymoon, we've been married, and we're in this chapter, which is essentially the marriage night, and here he is smelling, right? That which happens when we truly love him and anoint him with our spikenard. Thanks for listening.