The Art Of Attraction Series

INTRO: I believe the Lord wants me to focus on relationships, so I am going to try to preach through the Song of Songs (Song of Solomon) to give us some insight on relationships.

Insight to OT [broken into three sections]

1) Gen. – Neh. (historical section)

2) Isaiah – Mal. (prophetic section)

3) Between historical and prophetic section we have the poetic (dealing with the big issues of life)

-God in his worship (Psalms)

-Relationships among people and how to handle money (Prov.) -How does God allow evil and still be sovereign (Job) -Mysteries of life and how the body matures (Ecc.) -Song of Songs (Solomon) deals with relationships

(Dealing with all the facets that go along with it.)

Common sense – In a relationship where there is such strong emotions and passions, which are normal mixed into a marriage relationship.

-Do you think God just throws us in and says, "Figure it out!"

2 Peter 1:3 – "His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

-God gives us the book Song of Songs.

-Most people have not even read the book, and if they have read it, they have had a difficult time understanding it.

About the book – A lot of material I’ll use is from Tommy Nelson "A Study of Love, Sex, Marriage and Romance"

1. This book is 8 chapters long, taking a couple and giving you seven snap shots of their attracting, courtship, marriage.

-For two chapters you watch this couple fight.

Q: Have you ever fought, well you’ll see this couple fight.

2. This book according to Nelson is meant to be taught to singles (so they will know what to expect).

(Do you realize people spend more time learning how to drive a car?)

3. This book takes marriage and sees it as something divine. It will show you your desires, your passions as something normal and view it in the divine.

Ex... Have you ever been out to eat and you see a couple embracing one another and cuddling, and you think, "Oh, newlyweds. They just got married!" But as the years go by something seems to change.

-Friends, it shouldn’t seem to be that way.

TS: This morning, we’re going to look at a 3,000 year-old document that will help us tremendously.

-You might think, "How could a man write a book on (courtship and marriage) who had over 700 wives? (Who should know better than Solomon, the wisest man?)

-How can you have a book on worship (the Psalms) with a guy that committed murder and adultery? King David

-How can you have a guy write the church epistles that was a part in killing the first Christian and who also said that law produced within him a coveting of every kind? This was the Apostle Paul.

TITLE: The Art of Attraction TEXT: Song of Songs 1:1-7 I. Background to the text.

A. Joseph Pillow writes on the background – King Solomon lives in the tenth century B. C. He is Israel’s richest king, and owns vineyards all over the nation—one of them close to Baalhamon in the northernmost part of Galilee, near the foothills of the Lebanon Mountains. While visiting this vineyard, Solomon meets a country girl, Shulamith. She captures his heart. For some time he pursues her and makes periodic visits to see her at her country home.

Finally he asks her to marry him. Shulamith gives serious consideration to whether she really loves him and can be happy in the palace of a king, and finally accepts.

Solomon sends a wedding procession to escort his new bride-to-be to the palace in Jerusalem. The book opens, as she is getting ready for the wedding banquet and the wedding night.

B. Open with a question – "How do you attract?"

1. In other cultures you get married based on character and virtue, and it grows into romance.

2. In America it starts with romance and it devolves into chaos.

3. Key: What is attraction?

Ex...In the book of Genesis, Abraham sends a servant out to look for a wife for his son, Isaac.

-Servant goes, he does not know who the woman is, but he knows what kind of woman she ought to be.

Tommy Nelson – It’s not so much that you have to find the right person for your life, but you’ve got to be solid on the right kind of person that you will not settle for.

a. Servant Abraham looking for:

1) She had to be a believer. She had to be willing to leave everything to believe the Word of God and follow him to go back to the land of promise.

2) She had to be a camel watcher – In other words, she had to be a servant.