Song of Solomon 2:13 - The Time of Figs

Hidden Treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. How fun. We get to dig into time again today. It's just exactly the right time. Jesus knows exactly when the right time is for love, as we find out here in the second chapter of the Song of Solomon. Verse 13 in English reads, the fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Like, oh my goodness. This verse, Jesus clearly is quoting it, I would think you would say in Matthew 24 32. You might recall, he said, Now learn a parable, the fig tree, when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, yet you know summer is nigh. And again, that idea of, you know, Jesus is telling us in Matthew 24, when is exactly the right time. And here he's asking his beloved, very tenderly, by the way, and I would point out that this is the second time he says exactly the same thing.

And in the way he says that, he's asking her to go take a walk in Hebrew, and he's asking her to walk with me, very specifically because there's a yud after the word walk, which means walk with me. And the idea again, as he calls, but I think it's spectacular that he calls the second time after making a more compelling argument on that the time has come, that the time is exactly right. And by the way, he's not done asking, as we'll find out in future verses.

But again, how patient he is. And that idea when he says arise, as we talked about the last time, it was exactly the same word he used before, which has that cliff in it, which is the second letter in the word statutes that we've been talking and studying. And the reason I mentioned that again is because it has to do with proximity. And proximity to Jesus is very much connected to both time and space. In other words, the distance you are from him, but the closer you get to Jesus, the closer you get to eternity. But it's interesting how many times that letter throughout the 119 Psalm is connected to time, how things are so connected.

And so when Jesus says arise, I mean, it has to be exactly the same time. And it's really, really cool from my perspective, that there's so much about the figs. I mean, this is another common biblical analogy that is made time and again, and usually has to do with Israel and has to do with fruitfulness. And the idea here is actually, it is one of the last trees that buds in Israel. And so the fact that these green figs are there is saying that, wow, summer is really close. But there are three crops of figs every year in Israel. And the first crop produces these green figs that not many of them are good.

And many have to be thrown away. And many have said that this is a picture of Israel, that a lot of the figs that are coming in this first crop are green, and they're not making it. While there's other messianic Jews who come in, and this is a picture of that kind of thing. Again, it has to do with timing and has to do with, obviously, Jesus asking for us to come. And then, he mentions the vines, which very clearly, there's much, much, much in the Bible about grapes and vines and being part of the vine and being connected to the vine. And of course, we know even when we take communion, we're doing this. But here, he makes reference to the smell once again. And so you can see that the whole book of the Song of Solomon seems to just go after all our senses of beauty, that something smells beautiful, that it looks beautiful, that it tastes beautiful.

In other words, we're going after all the senses, and that's the beauty of what we're experiencing as we go through all these particular verses. But the thing I definitely want to come back to is the idea that he is saying once again, arise, my love, my fair one. In other words, he hasn't changed one iota from the first time he asked. He's still exactly saying the same thing. He's still calling us beautiful. He's not getting impatient.

He's still calling us his love, even though this is the second time he asked. And then he wants to go take a walk. And you know, you can't help but think of all those that walked with Jesus. And maybe you can think about with your own walk, what that might look like. Because when the exact right time has come, you know, that's when Jesus shows up.

And I mean, it's absolutely spectacular. So I wonder if you think about it in your own life, you know, how did that work? And did he ask more than once? And what did that look like? Well, as I thought about that in my own life this morning, I remember that it was actually in 1988, that my son ran away and was the first time that I invoked the five slam a jam a cat's pajama prayer, which maybe you've heard me talk about that before, where I just simply asked God to come and then listen to whatever he has to say. And in that story, you know, I had never really heard from God before and clearly didn't understand the blood of Christ and was not a Christian.

But there I was, I was hopelessly looking for my son. And it was in the middle of the night, like one o'clock in the morning. And I invoked that prayer. And I said, you know, Jesus, tell me what's going on. And he came very clearly, it must have been time.

The fig must have been on the but I don't know. But I know he showed up. And he said, you know, it's gonna be okay, I've got this. And within, you know, 1015 minutes, my son came in the driveway, Leslie, and I got my first acknowledgement that he heard me that he was with me. And that was so dear to me.

My son was so precious that I was as distraught as I can ever remember being that night. And then, unfortunately, I had to be called again. And again, there were several other incidences, you know, where I use that same prayer over the next couple years, but it wouldn't be until the spring of 1991, literally three years later, that Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's series, the power of positive thinking would lead me into the Bible. And then over another season of finally, you know, he got my attention to come walk, and I began to read and eventually even became a believer and then accepted him in my heart and all that.

And, and once I did that, obviously had the opportunity to bear fruit and things smell a lot better. So, you know, I don't want anybody to miss the beauty of all that's going on in this. And I would finish with the passage in Isaiah 61, to show you what this looks like, from a standpoint of, like, man, we got this coming. And so at the end of Isaiah 61, and for many of us, Isaiah 61 is a very precious, precious passage. Jesus quotes the beginning of it, you know, he's come to bind up the brokenhearted and set the captives free, which is what he did for me, okay? He did bind up the brokenhearted, and he set the captives free, and he declared this is the year that Robbie's his favorite.

I love that part of that, you know, at the beginning. But the last verse in Isaiah 61 definitely speaks to the last two verses that we've talked about in the Song of Solomon verses 12 and 13. So listen to this, Isaiah 61, 11, for as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown into to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. And so, you know, there is a time for everybody that he comes and knocks, or he calls, or rise, you know, my love, my fair one. But then there will come a time where the actual figs will get green, and there will be an actual time that all this will happen and all the nations will sing his praise, as surely, and here's the idea of this that I think he's just bringing home so beautifully, as surely as every spring it comes, Jesus is coming. And he's showing us a picture of that every spring to let us know, a reminder, I'm coming, it's gonna be great. You know, you begin to smell the beauty, you begin to feel the beauty, the cooing of the dove, you know, we were hearing it, right, the singing of the birds, the smell of the flowers, and the warmth on our skin. In other words, you got all these senses going that are indicating to us, spring is here, Jesus is coming. Thanks for listening.