Awakening a Giant

Mark Dunagan
08/21/11 - Sunday Evening

Awakening a Giant

One of the natural and frequent dreams of any human being is to fall in love.  I remember dreaming about meeting that special someone, wondering what they would look like and what they were doing right this moment.  I also remember feeling that as I saw older couples in love that how lucky they were and how I really wanted to have what they had.  Yet these thoughts could also lead to many frustrations.  I might be tempted to think that I could not be really happy until I had a girlfriend, or that somehow I was incomplete and not as valuable as long as I was single.  I might even be tempted to get mad at God for not delivering her on my timetable.  In the final chapter of the Song of Solomon, the writer gives us some very valuable information about love:

Love is a Sleeping Giant

“I want you to swear, O daughters of Jerusalem, do not arouse or awaken my love, until she pleases”: 

• The word “she” can also be translated “it”.  This verse is a repetition of verses 2:7 and 3:5.  This may be a final word of warning to the women of the court.  “She is saying in essence:  ‘I am committed to the shepherd as my husband—I can already feel his strong arms around me.  Do not, as I have said twice before, attempt to arouse any love on my part for Solomon” (Kidwell p. 430).   That is, trying to fall in love is a mistake.  I definitely made this mistake a couple of times when in High School, and I believe many others have gone down the same path.  You see someone, they are single, kind of cute and you try to generate feelings for them.  You go out on a date and there is no spark and you think something might be wrong with you, actually, this is a great blessing from God.  Think how frustrating life would be if you automatically and instantly fell in love with just about every person you met from the opposite sex.   
• “You see it was quite unnecessary to try to rouse love before its time.  Your experience must teach you how vain it has been to attempt to arouse it prematurely” (Harper p. 57).   

This is an excellent point.  Understand where you are in your life.  If you are early on still, be grateful that “the one” has not yet arrived, for you are not ready.  For example, if I would have met my wife even six months or a year earlier, I may have not been ready.  If I had went to High School with her, we might have never married.  So never be angry that “the one” has not shown up yet.  Be wise enough to realize when you are younger that typically relationships that are formed in Junior High and High School do not last.

• The “love” of this verse may include sexual desire.  “If we do not control it the way God intended, it will cause great problems within us as well as great hurts to others with whom we become involved.  It is dangerous to let sexual desires be stirred up or awakened, for they are more powerful than we think” (Hocking p. 172).

This is a wise point as well.  Sexual desire, that will naturally arrive is a sleeping giant.  The last thing that we want to do as parents is to jump start this desire in our children and young people need to be wise in not adding fuel to the fire.  The following are unwise:

• Listening to music with explicit lyrics.
• Watching any form of media that is sensual.
• Sneaking a look at various forms of pornography.
• Allowing your mind to simple dwell on sexual thoughts.

One writer worded it this way, “Cephalus….was relieved to have escaped the “mad and furious master” of the more youthful pleasures.  This resonated with a 17-year-old who could already see that love was a problem---a force associated with anguish, bondage, obsession…It is fun, I suppose, to feel faint like the “Beloved” who sighs in the quicksand of her emotions, “I am sick with love” (Song of Solomon 2:1-7)…But it begins to seem too, that love has its drawbacks.  Falling in love can be debilitating, enfeebling, and all-consuming…But love is a sleeping tiger, and the Song of Solomon issues a solemn warning of its bottled-up danger, a force which if approached unwisely will consume a man and all he has (8:6-7; Proverbs 5; James 1:14-15, Jude 8).

Are you ready for those feelings?  I have been young and now I am old, and I adjure you, O children of Jerusalem that you “not awaken love until it pleases” (Song of Solomon 2:7; 8:4).  Heed the caution, that you also may enjoy the garden in season.  The wise man will take care for his affections and keep them in the bound of God’s design, while the foolhardy will tickle the slumbering Leviathan before its time”. Andree Seu, Normal Kingdom Business, pp. 45-48

“For love is a strong as death, jealousy is as severe as Sheol, its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord.  Many waters cannot quench love, nor will rivers overflow it” (8:6-7).

On the one hand, this could be describing something very positive about love. 

• True love cannot be quenched, true love can wait:  1 Corinthians 13:4
• Nothing can destroy genuine love: Romans 8:38-39
• While lust can be purchased, genuine love cannot: Song of Solomon 8:7
• The final description about the love depicted in the Song is that it is priceless.  All one’s wealth would be totally inadequate to purchase such love.  In fact such money would be scorned, because love cannot be bought.   A couple of years ago I heard that for an unattractive man to marry an attractive woman, he would have to make at least 300,000 dollars a year.  This verse reveals that such a marriage though would not be based on love.
• I believe there is a very valuable lesson here for young people.  The temptation is to impress the opposite sex with some material thing.  When I was growing up young men tried to impress young women with the kind of car they could afford.  This verse says that all such efforts are wasted.  You may attract someone, but it won’t be the right person.
• Study hard, work hard, and use your talents, but remember that love cannot be purchased with being oh so clever, oh so smart, oh so wealthy or oh so popular.  Rather, I would recommend being oh so good.
• There is something very positive about the idea that love cannot be bought.  If it could be, then most of us would be left out, for the mighty and wealthy would rush in and grab it all for themselves.  Some would say that a shepherd would have no chance against a Solomon, yet in this book, the shepherd wins the girl.

On the other hand, this verse seems to be giving a negative side effect of romantic love as well. 

• “But it is a stern and terrible aspect of love to which our attention is now directed.  This is apparent as the Shulammite proceeds to speak of jealousy, which is ‘hard as the grave’.  If love is treated falsely, it can flash out in a flame of wrath ten times more furious than the raging of hatred—‘a most vehement flame of the Lord’” (Kidwell p. 437). 
• This can happen when you jump into love and are unprepared when it comes to maturity.  Love is wonderful, yet it can become a very destructive force if a person isn’t ready for this powerful emotion.  Just remember that there are adults that have given up possessions, children and wife for the name of “love”.  There are kings who have given up thrones for what they thought was love.  There are people who have committed suicide when it seems that they have lost this and there are women who have endured years of abuse for just the slim chance of some elusive “love”.  Make sure you are ready before you long for love and jump in.

“Put me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm”: 8:6

Love is an intimate commitment.  Possession of another person’s seal means that you have free access to all that he or she possesses.  She wants to be closer to his heart than anyone else.  This is vitally important in order for a relationship to be what it should be.  Love is an intense commitment.  Love is an indestructible commitment.   Love is an invaluable commitment. 

Wall or Door?

I don’t think that verses 8:8-9 are somehow a completely different topic.  In the context the idea seems to be that this woman is ready for a romantic relationship, she is ready for marriage, because she is a wall (8:10).  And as a result she will bring peace into her future marriage, rather than drama.

 

Wall

Door

“What is right”	“What is easy for me”
“Prove it”	“Easily swayed”
“Stand alone”?	“Following the crowd”
“I like it”	“Do others like it?”
“God says”	“They say”
“What is true?”	“What is trendy?”
“Am I respected?”	“Am I popular?”
“Fears God”	“Fears others”