This is the Truth Network. Hidden Treasures of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's.
How fun! Today we get to be upheld by the second part of the Psalmic verse. And as we've talked about, the letter of Psalmic has everything to do with support and very strong support by all means. And so this is the 15th verse of the fifth chapter. The Psalmic verse, we did part A, which is legs or his pillar of marble set upon sockets of fine gold.
Well today is the second half. In English it reads, his countenance is as Lebanon excellent as the cedars. And if that does not uphold you, I don't know what to say. But it's really, really a fantastic, amazing few words. When you think about Jesus's countenance, like when you get a really, really, really good look at his countenance, which that's a really tricky word right there, by the way, is the word countenance because it's translated so many different ways. If you look at this verse in several translations, you're going to find some places it's translated as his appearance, some places it's translated as his demeanor, and some places it's translated as his face. And so, you know, you get a lot of different ideas behind what is this countenance, and it's the same exact word that he used to describe us or the church, you know, back when he said, your countenance is comely.
And so, you know, one of the things that I, you know, just started out with, like, if we get a good look at Jesus, what is his countenance? Well, the beauty of that word in Hebrew is it's a mem, which is the Messiah, and then a rage, which is like the head or the beginning of something, and then an aleph. And so when you think about that, it's like the beginning of the father.
And of course, it's more of the beginning of the father because it starts with a mem, and so when you think about that, and then the last letter is a hei, which means expressed. So when Jesus said, when you see me, you see the father, well, there you go. Well, the really amazing thing that I found in studying this, as we've talked about these 10 utterances in the book of Genesis, and so if we come to this utterance, if we lined up these 10 things that were described about Jesus here with the 10 utterances of creation, with the idea that his creation would reflect him, well, this clearly would say that because this utterance lines up perfectly with, let us make man in our image and let him have dominion. So, wow, you can't help but see how that lines up with this because it is his image of the father, which we are all an image of that because we're made in their likeness. And so a really cool, when you look at how both Rashi and Matthew Henry described this, is the more you look, the more you see. They both had that comment, which I thought is amazing, and it's certainly that true of his word, like as he began to look into his word, the further you look, the more you see. You can look at the same sentence like this one a hundred times, and every time you're going to see something you hadn't seen before.
Well, that's very true. I would agree with both Rashi and Matthew Henry, and so when you and so when you think of his countenance, it is so many different things. It's unbelievable. I also love what Matthew Henry said about it. He said it was his port and his main, and so that were words that I had never heard before, so I immediately looked them up. Port and main has to do with the way someone walks and the way someone carries himself, which when you think about it, lines up so beautifully with the first part of the verse where it talks about his legs, right, or pillars of marble, and so his walk, it makes sense that that would be part of his countenance, which just expands my whole understanding of the word countenance as far as biblically or as far as what Solomon meant by this, that it's a lot more than just somebody's faith or somebody's appearance, but you know that people have a certain demeanor, that when you're in their presence, that's what that looks like, and so that challenged me, you know, as I began to think, wow, what is Jesus's demeanor? What is his walk like?
And so I would challenge you to be thinking about that in your own, you know, that's your homework. Sit down and actually ponder what is it like, what is Jesus's walk, his countenance, you know, his demeanor, his stride, you know, even his stateliness, what is that exactly like for you? So when you go into these words in Hebrew, they're just spectacular, again, as we talked about what countenance is, and then the idea of Lebanon is this idea of white light of faith, and so his countenance brings light, it's just enlightening, but it's enlightening in a way of enhancing your faith, and that's the idea of Lebanon in so many different ways, and there's no doubt that his countenance does bring so much understanding in the way of his word as a lamp into our feet, but that light has a lot to do with our faith, and I love that word.
Lebanon, as I pondered it more and more, but actually as much as I like that, I don't know that I don't like the word excellent as cedars even better, because the word excellent could bury, and the Jews translate it in their Bible, chosen, and I think the word is chosen, I like the word excellent, but I really love the word chosen in a lot of ways, and so his countenance, we choose his countenance as it is as the cedars, and the idea of cedars has got all sorts of imagery that you would think about, this beautiful strong tree, but when you look at the word in Hebrew is when it really comes to life for me in sort of 3D, however you want to put it, it's just like wow, it's an aleph which has to do with the father, has to do with, you know, God himself, God the father, and you think about Jesus as being in the father's image, I mean there's no doubt that, and then then it's a reish which has to do with considering something, and the idea of starting something, and then a zion which is the seventh letter, which is a whole idea of even more reflection, because when you look at the letter zion it's the seventh letter, and that seventh makes it, it's a female energy, has to do when they talk about Shabbat, the Jews do, they always say she comes as a bride, because the letter zion is a vav with a crown, and that crown is a woman of valor who can find, okay, and so this idea of the zion is this unbelievable remembrance, and so as you think about a cedar, it's this long beautiful extremely strong tree, it's strong because it has all these rings, and it grows so slowly that because those rings are so close together it is very very strong, and it doesn't rot, you know, it's got all that those all those attributes, but then up at the top you know it's here's this very tall straight tree that has this beautiful crown, and if you were to look at a zion you'd get that picture, but the idea of the zion again, as both Matthew Henry and Rashi pointed out, is the more you look at it the more you see, and the more you understand the further you get, so to speak, so you know when you think about Jesus as being the idea, and you might even remember when he gave communion he told us, you know, do this in remembrance of me, and that idea of remembrance being again connected to that whole idea of the Sabbath, and that whole idea of the zion, you might remember if you go look at the 119 Psalm, when there are all those verses have to do with, you know, I remember thy name in the night, and all those verses that have to do with remembrance have to do with the zion, and the number seven, and thinking back through Shabbat, well when you think back through, and when we do reflect on all that Jesus is, it just keeps getting better and better, and so what does that look like in your life, and you know how does that exactly, what when you look at Jesus's countenance, how does that, how does that, you know, what is his demeanor, what is his walk like, what is it to be in his presence? I was thinking about that I still I tell the story of Johnny Hendricks many times, he was my friend who was the dying of pancreatic cancer, and I've talked a lot about, you know, how the Lord put it on my heart to, you know, pray for him, and then, you know, I was able to, after he came out of the coma after four days that you might remember that, that I was able to help, you know, take him through the Bible, and he was able to, you know, come to him and know the Lord right before he died. It was absolutely beautiful, but it was a fascinating thing. A few hours after the day that Johnny died, the Lord came to me on the whole issue, and I remember it well that he told me that, Robbie, you're gonna do Johnny's funeral, and though it seemed like the craziest thing I'd ever heard in my life because, you know, I'm not a preacher, certainly not ordained, and like I've never done a funeral, I can't even imagine I would do Johnny's funeral, and the Lord said, but you can remember Johnny in a way that only you can remember Johnny, and here he is going to be remembered, and as people pondered this, he wants, we want to honor Johnny, and so, yes, you are going to do it.
Well, it wasn't 15 minutes after he and I had that conversation, and I didn't, I wouldn't believe this story if I didn't know it to be true, but it is exactly what happened. About 15 minutes later, his wife called me and Geraldine and said, Robbie, would you consider doing Johnny's funeral? It was so, you know, it seemed amazing to me, but let me tell you the fruit of Johnny's funeral, like almost everybody in the city of Mocksville, many, many, many people who don't know Johnny. I mean, many, many, many people who don't know Christ, you know, that just, that knew Johnny because they'd sold him cars. All these people were at his funeral, and what a gospel story they got to hear, because they got to hear the actual story of how Johnny came to faith in the last hours of his life, and as I got to share that at his funeral in a very detailed way, I've never forgotten the opportunity. I've never forgotten all that that happened as a result of that. I got to speak at several churches after that, from people that had heard the funeral asked me to come share that message at their church, and oh my goodness, all the people that came to the altar and all those different churches as a result of that funeral. In other words, the fruit of Jesus's remembrance, right, as he had me recall what all happened through the events of those days, of the light, the Lebanon that he brought, his countenance, his demeanor, as I walked out the last days of Johnny's life. It's absolutely spectacular, and so when you think about Jesus, I mean his countenance, what's it like to actually walk with him? There's your homework for this week. Thank you for listening.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-01-02 18:35:50 / 2023-01-02 18:40:52 / 5
