Sunday Morning Worship Service
by Raymond Woodward
March 13, 2022 · First Apostolic Church of Knoxville (Knoxville, TN)
Kind: sermon
Scripture: Deuteronomy 7:6-9, Exodus 20, Song of Solomon 1:9, 1 Kings 4:32, 1 Kings 11, 1 Kings 4:29, 1 Kings 10:21, Song of Solomon 8:13, Ecclesiastes 2:4-6, Song of Solomon 8:11, Song of Solomon 8:7, Song of Solomon 1:5-6, Song of Solomon 4:7, Song of Solomon 1:7, Song of Solomon 6:1, Song of Solomon 3:6-8, Song of Solomon 2:13, Song of Solomon 8:5, 1 Peter 1:8

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/raymond-woodward--sunday-morning-worship-service-185
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
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praise the lord everybody what an honor and what a great delight it is to be here this morning and i will be conscious of our time and i won't go on and on and on but i could um because we do have some wonderful shared history it is an honor to be here with all of you the great saints of god that make up this church um go ahead and be seated i don't want to keep you standing uh the great saints of god that make up this church you have the unmistakable privilege of being part of a church that has a footprint far larger than this building or this city or even this state and i stand here as a testimony today and some of you that um you were on that bus trip and you came in that choir i glanced around when you stood you look a little different than you did back then and i do too i was 12. never forgot those meetings and i am so grateful for this church and for your impact around the world if you're new at first apostolic let me tell you something you have stepped into such a powerful church with an apostolic biblical legacy and you can be safe here you can grow in god here you can matter for the kingdom here you're part of something so so great and uh if i was a resident of knoxville i guarantee you this would be my church i guarantee you your pastor would be my pastor this is just such a wonderful place and it's an honor to be with pastor mark and sister jamie mccool appreciate his voice far beyond uh this city in this state i we have mutual friends and he's preached in conferences and meetings and i'm so grateful for him and and the rest of your staff of these uh capable brilliant apostolic young men uh pastor nate pastor anthony and their wives and then um if tennessee i i know you don't but if tennessee had a king and a queen their names would be billy and betty mccool that's just the way it is and it's an honor to be with bishop today such a high honor now like i said i could go on forever so i won't we'll get right to the word we're going to walk our way there to a text i won't have you stand right now but i would love it if you'd lift up your hands and just tell the lord i want to hear from your word today lord jesus we're so grateful to be in your presence and so thankful for all these wonderful people and this is a day that's full of promise because you made this day and i ask that you speak to us through your word and we give you all the praise and all the glory everybody said amen amen in jesus name well i have a subject for you this morning that i can guarantee that none of your great anointed pastors have ever preached to you i guarantee it uh because they would not do this they they wouldn't do it but i'm canadian and our brains are kind of frozen from the snow and so my subject for your consideration this morning is um cinderella that's my subject for your consideration so i guarantee bishop or pastors never preached on this but but if you read in the word of god there's this strange little book in the bible in the old testament called song of solomon it is actually one of the most unique books in the entire bible it's one of the most disputed books one of the most difficult to understand to many people and at one point it looked like it was going to be left out of the bible because people looked at it and it has very frank expressions about human intimacy and love and marriage and so they almost left this one out of the bible but the jews never left it out of the bible because they know that this little book paints a picture of an engagement and a wedding and a marriage and they understood it to be israel engaged to jehovah on the night of passover when he delivered them from egypt and then they were married to jehovah on pentecost when the nation accepted his covenant the ten commandments and and then just before they entered the promised land moses actually spoke these words over the people here's what he said for you are a holy people unto the lord your god the lord your god has chosen you to be a special people unto himself above all people that are upon the face of the earth and in the new testament guess what that's us but before we get a big head and get a little proud here's what moses said the lord did not set his love upon you nor choose you because you were more in number than any people because actually you were the fewest of all people so it wasn't that god had to have you in his kingdom but it was because the lord loved you and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers that's why the lord brought you out with a mighty hand and that's why he redeemed you out of the house of bondmen and that's why he redeemed you from the hand of pharaoh the king of egypt and so moses said to israel he said know therefore that the lord thy god he is god he's the faithful god and he keeps covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations now you read in exodus chapter 20 you see where the ten commandments were given and right in the middle of the ten commandments god says that the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation you don't have to read the bible to figure that out you can read a newspaper it's so common that an alcoholic their child grows up and says i never want to be like dad he was abusive and he was cruel but it's just the way human nature is and and that child grows up they have no other model they have no other pattern and so an alcoholic often raises an alcoholic and the child of an abuser often grows up to be an abuser it's the sins of the fathers being visited down through a family tree three and four generations deep and we see it everywhere in america but let me tell you the mercy of god flows down in a family tree to a thousand generations so if you're the first christian if you're the first apostolic in your family you just blessed your family tree in every direction for many generations so beautiful the power of god so so now on the surface the song of solomon is a book of romantic poetry that's what it is and it describes with with frankness but but with purity the the the attraction of a man and a woman to each other and and they fall in love and they get married and and it's it's wonderful so many pastors and many churches have used song of solomon for a bible study on courtship or marriage or they've used it for premarital counseling and that's all wonderful but there's a deeper message here in this beautiful little book when you look past that you see god in love with his bride now in the old testament that's israel and jehovah but in the new testament do you understand that the lord jesus is our heavenly bridegroom and we are his chosen bride the love of god is set on us the love of god is all around us and it's a powerful and beautiful thing now uh i i brought something for you this morning because i want to help you understand this book so i brought this and i i i did this for you and i hope you like it uh because this book is ancient eastern poetry it doesn't follow a clear linear thought progression like modern western writing so i drew a map for you so that you could completely understand song of solomon it's quite a task to come up with an orderly arrangement of the book and here's why the song it flows back and forth between various speakers and it shifts seamlessly from one scene to another and there's not much of a definite storyline and it jumps ahead and then it jumps back and then it jumps back to the present tense and and and there's a lady who's in love and she's talking about the her beloved the man she's fallen in love with and and so uh her mind is going she thinks ahead to her wedding and then she thinks back to her courtship and it's just it's just a mess is what it is but but in the middle of it all there's some powerful beauty there are key phrases that are repeated over and over again and and then there's one other little difficulty when we try to understand this little book and it's the way the bride and groom talk to each other uh because that doesn't translate very well uh three thousand years later for example in chapter one and verse nine he says i've compared thee oh my love to a company of horses in pharaoh's chariots now i would not recommend husbands that you use that as a compliment for your dearly uh beloved i i wouldn't recommend that you say darling today you look like a horse i would not recommend that that doesn't translate well but see what we've forgotten is how beautiful and graceful horses can be compared to many other animals and and then we're also unaware of how valuable they were in that time frame way back 3 000 years ago but but it's more than that these are horses that are pulling the chariots of the royal king solomon they're expensively elegantly adorned they're beautiful and then it's even more than that because the hebrew word here is feminine this is a mare harnessed among the stallions which would be the ultimate distraction to them so what he just said to her that we don't understand is he says i can't keep my eyes off you so that's a much better compliment that one would be okay but but there's many compliments in this little book that really don't translate well he says to her at one point you have dove's eyes that's not too bad but when he says your hair is like a flock of goats that just doesn't translate really well to the 21st century your teeth are like a flock of sheep i don't know whether he means they're s-white or whether he means they're kind of woolly maybe he's looking at her first thing in the morning i don't know but but there's other phrases that just don't translate well your navel is like a round goblet and your belly is like a heap of wheat and your nose is like a tower i i wouldn't use those phrases verbatim in the 21st century but despite these obstacles there's still pretty broad agreement on the structure of this beautiful little book it's got three sections it describes the bride and the bridegroom in their engagement and then their wedding and then their marriage and it's separated by two haunting dreams where she dreams that he has left her and she panics and and and so it's a beautiful portrait of marriage uh it it shows us leaving our family of origin and cleaving to our spouse and then weaving a new relationship together so it's a powerful beautiful little book now it's written by solomon first kings 4 and 32 solomon spoke 3 000 proverbs and his songs were a thousand and five so he spoke three thousand wise sayings and he took some of them the best of the best and he put them in a book that we know as proverbs there's only about 514 proverbs in that little book so he took the best out of the three thousand he wrote a thousand and five songs but this is his top song it's the song of songs that's a hebrew expression it's like we would say the king of kings or the lord of lords or the holy of holies this is the best of the best of the best it's the greatest song that wise king solomon ever wrote it's beautiful now here's the problem everybody knows about solomon's failures later in his life everybody remembers that he married many pagan women from all the kingdoms around to try to make peace treaties and establish trading relationships and when he did that he broke the commandments of god and he became entangled with the gods of all those pagan women and it was terrible first kings 11 says he had 700 wives princesses 300 concubines but here's the point his wives turned away his heart but i'm glad to stand here this morning and tell you that the song of solomon predates all that backsliding it was written in his younger years and it tells us the real true story of his first and his true love because brothers and sisters the early reign of king solomon was the greatest time in all of human history to be an israelite here's what first king says god gave solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much gave him largeness of heart even as the sand that is on the seashore chapter 10 says all of king solomon's drinking vessels were made of gold none and all of the vessels of the house of the forest of lebanon his palace all of the vessels were pure gold none were of silver they didn't use silver in the days of king solomon it was nothing accounted of in the days of solomon that's wealthy solomon was the wealthiest and wisest man who had ever lived and so the song of solomon is to be understood on two levels it's this story of solomon's love but it's a picture of us and our heavenly bridegroom you were not created to be an alcoholic you were created to be in his bride oh my goodness you were not created to be an addict you were created to be filled with the holy ghost god loves you that much and so it's it's beautiful and and it points us back to to solomon's kingdom the most beautiful time in and it really points us back to how we were created to be in relationship with god and that's why the song of solomon ends with the bride and the bridegroom and they're united in love and and united in intimacy and they're in a garden filled with trees and we're meant to think that reminds me of the garden of eden it's a picture pointing back to what god intended us to be when i taught this to our church a couple years back i fell in love with this little verse chapter 8 and verse 13. thou that dwellest in the gardens the companions hearken to thy voice cause me to hear it she says to him solomon you that dwell in these beautiful gardens all of your companions listen to your voice your servants listen your maids listen your soldiers listen everybody else hears your voice cause me to hear your voice my goodness that's a powerful prayer to pray jesus i'm so glad that bishop can hear your voice and i'm glad that pastor can hear your voice and i'm glad we've got leaders in this church that hear your voice but quite frankly that's not enough for me i need to hear the voice of god in my own life so jesus caused me to hear your voice i'm thankful pastor hears your voice but i don't get to be with pastor 24 7. so cause me to hear your voice oh is there anybody that's walked with the lord a little while and that's a hunger in your life lord cause me to hear your voice everybody else hears your voice great preachers and pastors and evangelists they hear your voice but jesus caused me to hear your voice that's a different thing so so today i i just want to take a few moments and and just kind of weave some some threads together put this little puzzle of song of solomon together for you and and by the time we get done this morning i think you'll know exactly why god allowed this odd strange little book to be included in your bible now this morning i called it cinderella because there are thousands of variants of the folk tale that we know as cinderella and they're known and loved not just in america but throughout the world in the cinderella story the protagonist is always this young woman who lives as a pauper as a peasant in forsaken circumstances and in every variation of the cinderella story her circumstances are suddenly changed all because she ascends to a throne through marriage to a king it's it's really kind of an amazing story and no disney did not come up with this this existed years before walt ever walked on the earth in english cinderella has come to mean someone who lives in forsaken circumstances but suddenly they achieve recognition after a long period of neglect and and so uh in secular literature um it didn't come from walt disney it didn't come from little story books you read when you were a ken kid the earliest variant of the cinderella story was actually told around the time of jesus it was told by a greek philosopher named strabo now he lived in a different culture spoke a different language his story was of a greek slave girl named rodopas and rhodopus although she was a popper peasant girl she eventually grew up to marry the king of egypt and that was his fictional tale he it was about rhodopus but nearly a thousand years before strabo's fictional story there was a real life cinderella and she caught the eye of the king of israel whose name was solomon that king of course is solomon he's the son of king david he's the third king of israel he's the wisest and wealthiest man who ever lived he presided over the golden age of the nation of israel the entire nation lived in peace and prosperity he constructed the glorious temple he expanded the royal palace it was amazing people from distant lands traveled thousands of miles just to be exposed to the wisdom and the wealth and the palace and the constructions of solomon he was an architectural genius ecclesiastes 2 he writes writes this i made great works and i built houses and i planted vineyards and made gardens and orchards and i planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit and i made pools of water to water everything he said i conduct i i constructed aqueducts i built it all for israel now here's what you need to know about that weird strange odd little book called song of solomon one of those magnificent estates that solomon built was a vast vineyard in the fertile jezreel valley in northern israel it was near a tiny little village called shunam about 50 miles from solomon's palace in jerusalem and it was there in that vineyard that the king's subject see in those days the king owned the whole country he owned everything lock stock and barrel he owned every bush every tree every grain of sand the king owned the country and so it was there in that vineyard that his subjects performed the arduous back-breaking work of tending crops and pruning vines and picking grapes trying to chase away thieves and predators and and enduring that hot burning sun day after day after endless day and then when they got finished at the end of the month or year they had to give all the proceeds to the king because he owned the whole country song of solomon eight solomon had a vineyard at bale heyman it's that vineyard he let out the vineyard unto keepers and everyone for the fruit thereof had to bring him a thousand pieces of silver he got tribute from all of his vast vineyards and estates now the book of ecclesiastes which solomon wrote late in his life it tells us that he often would undertake expeditions he'd he'd disguise himself and he'd go out in his kingdom because he really had a desire to see how everybody lived how other people lived and he wanted to seek out all kinds of experiences and so one day when solomon is in disguise and he travels north to the jezreel valley and he goes to this estate to check on his land holdings and his vineyards his eyes just happen to fall on a very beautiful peasant girl who just happened to be working in that very vineyard on that very day and in the heart of the king it was love at first sight but now the king solomon he has a dilemma because he and his true love they move in completely different orbits he's a king she's a popper he lives in a palace she sleeps in a shack he has wealth and wisdom she has nothing so just the fact that they would meet that's pretty remarkable but to think they could ever have a courtship or a marriage that's unimaginable solomon has all the power in the world but in matters of the heart he is totally powerless and here's why because you can't buy love and even if you could buy it who would want it if you had to buy it and so that's what's recorded in this little book in chapter 8 and verse 7. many waters cannot quench love neither can the floods drown if a man would give all the substance of his house for love it would utterly be condemned so you can't buy love solomon so the king has a quandary the king can't figure out what he's going to do 175 years ago there was a danish philosopher named soren kierkegaard and and he wrote a book called philosophical fragments now i'm not even recommending you go there if you want to if you're into philosophy you could read kierkegaard and that would be fine but based on his love he loved this weird little book in your bible called song of solomon and based on his love for song of solomon in that book he wrote a little parable a short story and he called it the king and the maiden and if you just allow me for a couple of minutes i'd like to read you a modern adaptation of kierkegaard's little short story here it is suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden but she had no royal pedigree no education no standing in the king's court she dressed in rags and she slept in a hovel she lived the pitiful life of a peasant but for reasons no one could quite figure out the king fell in love with this girl in the way that kings sometimes do why he should love her was beyond explaining but love her he did and he could not stop loving her but there arose in the heart of this mighty king an anxious thought how in the world can i reveal my love to this girl how can i bridge the great chasm that separates the two of us his advisors came into his throne room and of course they told him all you have to do is command her to become your queen and it'll be done because mighty king you're a man of immense power and every statesman fears your wrath and every foreign power trembles at your voice and every subject grovels in the dust when you walk in so you just command it mighty king and this girl will have no power to resist shall have to become your queen but you see power even unlimited power cannot command love yes the king could force her body to be present in the palace but he could not force love to be present in her heart he might be able to gain her obedience this way but coerced submission is not what he wanted he longed for intimacy of heart and oneness of spirit but you see all the power in the world all the power in the universe cannot unlock the human heart it has to be open from inside and so the king met with his advisors one more time and this time they said well mighty king here's what you need to do you can bridge that chasm by just elevating her to your position shower her with gifts and dress her in royal robes and summon an audience of dignitaries and just have her crown the queen but the king was smart enough to know that if he brought her to his palace and she saw all the wealth and pomp and power of his greatness the mighty king knew she would be overwhelmed how would he ever know if she loved him for himself or just for all the things that he had given her and how could she know for sure that he really loved her and he would have loved her just as much if she'd never had a royal robe and never lived in a palace but just remained a humble peasant every alternative the king's advisors suggested came up empty and finally the mighty king realized there was only one way to win the maiden's love without destroying her freedom to choose he had to become like her without power or riches or the title of a king only then would she be able to see him for who he really was and not just what he possessed and so one day the mighty king arose from his throne and he took off his crown and he relinquished his scepter and he laid aside his royal robes he dressed himself in rags left the palace and traveled all the way to where she lived all so he could win her heart yes the king took on the identity of a poor pauper and he did it all for love my goodness i think you know where we're going today i i think kierkegaard he he expressed it well because that's really the story of this strange little book in your bible solomon returned to that vast vineyard he owned near the tiny village of shunam but nobody would have recognized solomon as the owner of the vineyard or as the king of the country he didn't look at all like king solomon this time because he had disguised himself in the garments of a humble shepherd and he did this just to see if it would be possible that a real relationship between him and that girl would ever be doable ever be possible but that shulamite girl she's got a problem too because she's spent a lifetime apologizing for her poverty and her pain and her appearance and she just can't help herself she can't comprehend that anybody would ever think she was worthy of love that anybody would ever want to marry her even if he is just a humble shepherd she's totally humiliated by her grubby face and her grimy hands and her tangled hair and her threadbare clothes her tattered appearance but none of that is her fault she's sunburned from working outside all the time hard work has made her garments shabby and dirty she's scratched and sticky from picking grapes every day and even worse her step-brothers and they've treated her harshly and they've made her endure long difficult days under the burning sun in the vineyard and now her appearance is marred and her beauty is marred and her dignity has been destroyed and when he first meets her and expresses his love she can't help herself she's just apologizing for who she is she says in chapter one look not upon me i'm black i'm sunburned because the sun has looked upon me my mother's children all my step-siblings they were angry with me they made me the keeper of the vineyards they forced me to do this hard work but mine own vineyard have i not kept i've never had time to pretty myself and make myself beautiful i'm just battered and beaten and and i'm embarrassed about my past and i'm embarrassed about where i come from but you see that handsome shepherd he saw what nobody else saw he looked beyond her battered appearance because he could see a beautiful bride and every time she puts herself down he reaches down and picks her back up when she has nothing but words of despair he responds with expressions of love she sees herself as a cinderella but when he looks at her he sees the queen of his kingdom that's what he sees and so she says that but here's what he says oh no thou art all fair my love there is no spot in thee if you could for a split second understand how jesus sees this church how jesus sees his people how jesus sees the saints of god how jesus sees his beautiful bride he doesn't look at all your past and all your mistakes he looks at you and says oh no you are all fair my love there's no spot in the you know why there's no spot in us because our sins have been cleansed by the blood of the lord jesus shed on the cross of calvary so when he sees you he sees the queen of his whole kingdom oh i wish somebody would give him a praise for that thank you jesus oh thank you jesus now we don't know how long their courtship lasted we can make a guess two spring seasons are referred to in song of solomon so we think their courtship lasted a little bit more than a year and it seems that solomon visited that vineyard several times all was in disguise over several months and his plan worked because that's what the story of the book is now she's fallen in love with this humble shepherd she still doesn't have any idea who he really is she's just fallen in love with this handsome humble shepherd and and there are some funny things in the bible and there's a funny thing right here because she can never quite figure out one thing about this man that she's fallen in love with this handsome humble shepherd chapter 1 verse 7. tell me o thou whom my soul loveth where thou feed is where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon why should i be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions she looks at him one day and she says um i just got one question where are your sheep all the other shepherds have sheep you don't have any sheep there's never any sheep when you show up she never could quite figure that out eventually his royal responsibilities call him back to the palace in jerusalem but not before that humble shepherd makes her a promise i'm going away but i will return and when i return i will make you my bride she still has no idea that he's the king who owns the whole country lock stock and barrel every bush every grain of sand he owns it all she has no idea who he is all she knows is this humble shepherd has promised i'm going away but i will return and when i return you're gonna be my bride my goodness my goodness so he's gone a long time and uh sometimes she dreams about him that's what the book's about always she longs about him constantly your thoughts that's why the book gets so confusing her thoughts jump ahead to that wedding he's promised and then they go back to that first time she met him and and it just jumps around a lot but here's the thing you got to know about this story nothing happened for so long other than her love for him nothing had changed in her everyday life she still had to get up in the morning and go to the vineyard she still had to tend crops and prune vines and pick grapes she still had to chase away thieves and predators and she still had to endure that burning baking hot sun day after day after day nothing had changed to everybody else she looked just the same there was nothing different about her life except inside she was holding on to a promise my beloved said he's going away but he's coming back for me one other thing i guess changed in her life now she has to endure the harsh mockery of her family and friends because they didn't believe that anybody could ever love her even if he was just a humble shepherd and so they mocker chapter six and verse one wither is thy beloved gone o thou fairest among women whither is thy beloved turned aside that we may seek him with thee they're mocking her they don't believe that anybody could love her they don't believe that any shepherd is coming back to make her his his bride they don't believe it and sometimes she replies with calm assurance but other times in this little book she battles nagging doubts sometimes she speaks with stubborn confidence but other times on certain days her eyes fill with blinding tears sometimes she's courageous other times she struggles with fear but every time they ask and every time she answers one thing remains unchanged she has a love for her beloved and she has faith in his promise that he's coming back one day they're mocking her and they say in chapter 5 what is thy beloved more than another beloved oh thou fairest among women what is thy beloved more than another beloved that thou dost so charges it on this day she has had enough she looks back at them with boldness and she says my beloved is white and ruddy he's the chiefest among ten thousand we used to sing an old song like that in the apostolic movement he's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul the world doesn't know who jesus is i don't really know who he is yet i haven't seen him in all of his glory but i've fallen in love with this one who cleansed me from my sin and so i say to them he is the fairest of ten thousand he's all together lovely there's nobody like this jesus that we serve oh yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes so the book goes on and it doesn't seem like much changes everybody else looks at her and they say she still has to get up and go to work work her job she's still got issues and problems what's changed but what they can't see is she's holding a promise inside of her and then one day just an ordinary spring day there was this great cloud of dust on the road coming up to the vineyard and all the common people ran to see what was going on if you had been there that day you would have soon seen this majestic procession and it's making its way to the vineyard and the murmurs of the crowd soon become excited shouts and they're yelling to each other it's king solomon the king is coming to our vineyard in his royal chariot and sure enough he's there he's being carried on in a royal box by his soldiers and and he's guarded by 60 strong men and they're burning incense in honor of the king so he doesn't have to smell any of the barnyard farm yard smells on the way and if you had been there that day it would have looked like the king of the whole country was arriving carried on a cloud of incense and here he comes up the road song of solomon chapter three who is this that comes out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke and he's perfumed with myrrh and frankincense and with all the powders of the merchant behold his bed is chariot it's solomon's sixty valiant men are around it of the valiant of israel and they all hold swords and they're all expert in war and every man has his sword strapped on his thigh because of fear in the night they're not letting anything happen to their great king king solomon had made that chariot out of the wood of lebanon and the shulamites abusive stepbrothers no doubt they said you just stay here and you keep your nose to the grindstone and you keep picking the grapes and tending the vines we'll go and see what's going on the king would never want anything with you anyway you're a popper peasant girl you dress in rags and you sleep in a shack you stay here but to everybody's shock on that day the chariot stops at the border of the vineyard and the king of the whole country who owns every grain of sand they're standing on he steps out of his chariot and he walks into the vineyard and he walks straight over to this popper peasant girl this little humble shulamite girl we don't even know her name and the next thing she does is she looks up and the king of the whole country is looking down at her you know she must have been terrified for a second but then when she looked at his face a little closer she realized two things number one he's not angry he's smiling at her and then she can hardly believe it she looks into the face of the king of the whole country and realizes wait a minute that's my humble shepherd who promised me that he was going away but he was coming back and when he came back he's going to make me his bride my shepherd has come back but he's not a shepherd anymore he's the king of the whole country oh my goodness i wish you'd lift up your voice and just thank jesus for the hope we have and the promise we have oh thank you jesus oh thank you jesus oh thank you jesus chapter 2 and verse 13 the fig tree puts forth her green figs so it must have been springtime when he came back and the vines with a tender grape give a good smell and he says to her arise my love my fair one and come away and in one instant brothers and sisters her future changed forever because the king has come for her and he gallantly escorts her to his royal chariot to the amazement of everybody that's looking on and together they begin the journey back to the royal city of jerusalem where she will live in a palace and become solomon's queen in one second the vineyard is left behind her in one instant all the endless days of toiling and labor and suffering our history in one instant her persecutors can never touch her and never taunt her ever again in one moment her rags are exchanged for royal garments and her address changes from a popper shack to a king's palace and best of all she gets to spend the rest of her life with her beloved the king who became a pauper also a pauper could become his queen [Music] music come on back for me would you and so now on this day the crowd that persecuted the shulamite they are absolutely astonished to see a peasant girl riding in the royal chariot of king solomon and they're even more amazed to think that the humble shepherd that she always talked about he was all the time the king of the whole country and so now their tune has changed who is this that comes up from the wilderness and she's leaning on her beloved they can hardly believe it and song of solomon's like every great story that you know or you read to your kids they lived happily ever after that's the story of the bible in one little book brothers and sisters you see what the world doesn't see right now they know we talk about this jesus who came and he was born and laid in a manger and he grew up and he preached and he he taught and he did miracles and he died on a cross he was buried in the tomb and he rose again and that's a very powerful story but they've never seen him in his glory they know him from history we know him from prophecy they know him from history we know him from the scripture and this king who came in humility and you could say he came in humiliation he left us a promise he said i'm going to go away but i will come back now the world has never seen him in his glory but can i give you a little revelation here this morning we've never seen him in his glory either jesus is no longer hanging on a cross he's no longer a baby in a manger he's no longer even the triumphant jesus outside the tomb on easter sunday morning as glorious as that is that's not who he is he's more than that he is the king of kings and the lord of lords and the god above every other god he inhabits earth and heaven all at the same time and when he comes back we are going to get to see him in his glory too a couple more scriptures first peter chapter one peter said the pentecost preacher he said whom having not seen you still love him and in whom though now you see him not you still believe in him and all the while you're waiting for the promise to be fulfilled you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory it's going to be different the next time jesus comes to planet earth the world's going to see him you know what else they're going to see they're going to see us they're going to see the church in a way they have never seen the church in a way they could never have imagined it was our prince our king who said if i go and prepare a place for you i will come again and receive you unto myself that where i am there you may be also there's an apostolic church in the middle of knoxville tennessee that is anticipating the soon return of the lord jesus christ and when we see him we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is stand with me and in the meantime we're just waiting for one call my beloved spake and said unto me rise up my love my fair one and come away if you listen real close you can almost hear the quiver and the tremble of prophecy in our world today nothing has taken god by surprise none of the violence or the turmoil none of the sadness or the sorrow none of the mess none of the stress none of the strain none of the hatred none of that has taken god by surprise prophecy is quivering and the earth is groaning in travail because jesus is coming soon and it is the mission of this church and other great apostolic churches just like it all around the world we're not here to build beautiful buildings and this is wonderful we're not here to just have a social club but his fellowship is beautiful we're here to get people in the bride we're here to get people ready for that second return that second appearing of the lord jesus christ we're here so that people can be listening for the call rise up my love my fair one and come away oh my goodness i wish every person in this room would lift up both of your hands and lift up your voice higher than your hands and give the lord praise in this room this morning jesus wants to embrace somebody you think you're destroyed you think your life's a mess and he says no no no i want you in my bride i want you in my church i want you to be healed and whole i can turn your mess into a miracle i can turn all of your past into a beautiful future i don't know all of your customs on a sunday morning they've given me the beautiful liberty of this pulpit and i thank pastor for that but i would love it if you would help me this morning because there's somebody in here they need to be embraced by the heavenly bridegroom today and if we would all just step out of where we're standing and fill these wonderful altars it would make it easy for somebody else to come walking into the presence of god and let jesus touch their life it would make it easy for somebody to lay down their past and let him heal their hurts and let him forgive their sin and let him cleanse the stain oh thank you great great church look at this thank you for responding today thank you jesus thank you jesus oh my could i ask you to do just one more thing go ahead and sing i'd just like you to reach over to somebody standing near you put your hand on their shoulder and let's pray together for one another and let's let jesus minister in this room right now you can be free today you can be healed today you can be delivered today you can receive the holy ghost today the spirit of the heavenly bridegroom living in you thank you [Music] my for the first time [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] brought me from the darkness into glorious [Music] you took my [Music] out place jesus [Applause] [Music] there is [Music] nothing stronger [Music] [Music] oh yes we are [Music] thank you jesus [Music] power of the lord [Music] sons and daughters and we are ransomed [Music] oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] thank you jesus [Music] hallelujah could you lift your hands and love jesus would you love him just a moment would you love jesus just a moment oh aren't you thankful for the wonderful heritage that we have has the bride aren't you glad to be a part of the bride aren't you thankful that he chose you hallelujah could we one more time just give high praise to jesus thank him thank him thank him jesus i praise you i praise you for your love i praise you for all that you became and i might have salvation thank you jesus thank you lord thank you lord thank you lord