MESSAGE TEXT
Song of Solomon 8:5-14
*
PROPOSITION
Song of Solomon 8:5–14 asserts that a healthy marriage isn't one that lives happily ever after; it's one that learns to love happily even after. I’m going to argue that the goal of marriage is not a fairy-tale ending but a Christ-centered, redeemed relationship that endures hardship. Love is a covenant commitment. Protect the flame! Don’t let it go out.
*
CONTEXTUALIZATION
I think Solomon probably wrote the Song of Solomon later in life as a kind of confession of true love. Solomon ended up having relationships that led his heart away from the Lord (1 Kings 1–11). It’s almost as if Solomon says “After all these wives, let me tell you about the one true love of my life.” Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, but he wrote a song about one woman. That may be the point. The man who experienced every counterfeit is uniquely qualified to describe the real thing.
*
The SoS has the bride speaking the most in it. And it shows how she understood true love and refused to let it go. The Song is her argument that exclusive, devoted love far surpasses polygamous counterfeits. The Song, Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs reads like a testimony when taken together: “I spent years chasing what could never satisfy, and now let me tell you what love was supposed to look like from the beginning.”
*
FALLEN CONDITION FOCUS
Like Solomon, we are tempted to exchange genuine covenant love for lesser substitutes that promise satisfaction but leave us empty from all the fairytale expectations. We are prone to settle for counterfeit versions of love rather than God's covenant design. A successful marriage isn't one that never breaks—it is one that keeps inviting Jesus into the broken places until redemption becomes the story.
*
BACKGROUND
The last chapter of the Song of Songs is like the end of a musical, when all the characters come back on stage for the final number. Here in the closing of SoS, we have a series of short references to, or comments from, all the participants in the Song—the companions (daughters of Jerusalem), the brothers, King Solomon, the mother, the beloved, and the lover. It’s like a curtain call at the end of the drama. Here in the Song, for the first and only time, we step back from the “story” and get the closest thing to a definition of love that the Song will give us (8:5-7).
*
DOMINANT IMAGE
The heart of the passage: "Love burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame—the very flame of the LORD" (8:6). An extremely intense flame. The Hebrew word for “blaze” or “flashes” is translated as “lightning bolts” (Dillow/Pintus, Intimacy Ignited). These “fire bolts” burst forth from a love where God’s flame is honored. A couples love is like a flame that God ignited and he’s in the midst of that flame. Protect the flame! She described the love that they shared through a series of comparisons. The natural forces piled up and named in 8:6–7—death, flame, sea, river, flood—all point to Canaanite gods of destruction. Tragedy may strike from the mightiest chaotic powers of the universe, but Yahweh-inspired love endures. In Him, our love is safe. Love is like a raging fire and cannot be extinguished. Therefore, one must take care how, where, and with whom the spark of love is ignited. The bride is saying: "Our love is strong, relentless, passionate, enduring, and beyond all price." Why refer to death and the grave? The hope is that the joy of love could go on forever.
*
“Love that burns brightest does not burn accidentally. Song of Solomon 8 gives us eight ways to protect the flame.” Love that burns, flames up, and shines the brightest has EIGHT EXPRESSIONS TO IT (see slides) The way we protect the flame is to give attention to these things…
*
MAIN POINTS
A Committed Love — "I'm all in."
Place me like a seal (v.6a)
*
A Lasting Love — "I'm not leaving."
love is as strong as death (v.6b)
*
A Fired Up Love — "My heart is engaged."
It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame… the very flame of the LORD (v.6c)
*
An Unquenchable Love – “You’ve got me forever.”
Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot sweep it away. (v.7a)
*
A Priceless Love — "You can't buy it."
If one were to give all the wealth of one’s house for love, it would be utterly scorned (v.7b)
*
A Protected Love — "It's worth guarding."
I am a wall (v.8-10).
*
A Sacrificial Love – “I’ll be a giver!”
But my own vineyard is mine to give (v.11-12)
*
A Pursuing Love — "I want to be with you."
Come away, my beloved (v.13-14)
*
CONCLUSION
Protect the flame of love! Commit to it. Stay with it. Keep the fire burning. Stand together in the storms. Treasure it above everything money can buy. Protect it. Give yourself away. And never stop pursuing the one God has entrusted to you. You need Christ and His love to flow through you! Come to Him today!